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Bitterbal and Nossob were at Spekboom hide waterhole yesterday morning. They must have passed Kalahari along the way, because he was in that area on Monday and the lion researcher picked up his collar's signal above Marion Baree that morning (the direction the other two had come from).

Gina and Kamqua were trying to catch warthogs this morning in an area of the park called Wayne's Valley, but didn't succeed.

I like these sighting reports Megan. Thanks for your commitment.

Where in the park is Wayne's Valley?
And who was Wayne?:hmz:

Not sure who Wayne was Geoff, but Wayne's valley is the first valley you go through after you have entered the south gate (from you side of the park) It's the spot where you have a lot of high grass land area and there are always a few kudus around there.

Gerrit, Wayne Erlank was a former section ranger at Addo...I think he went to or is now at Baviaanskloof????

Didnt have any work in PE that day so went and took the "Wedding" at Addo instead.....great occassion with me as the only guest until a few gate crashers pitched up at Bitterbal and Kamqua's big day

Thanks for sharing this intimate moment with us Peter.
Thanks also for the info re Wayne Erlank.
Once again the pic is great and the luck you have with the Addo lions still astounds me.

Dont worry Apple if you think that was an intimate moment...what about this..Nossob and Bitterbal were patrolling around on top of Mababala Loop and Nossob flopped down next to my drivers side door...i thought of taking some very weird shots from above but he's so big and my car is so low that his head was almost up to halway up the door and I didnt fancy my luck that day of not been chomped so I leant across the passenger side at a stretch and started shooting Bitterbal who was grooming himself 25 metres in on that side...I heard this weeze behind me and slowly turned around and there was the "sleeping" Nossob looking right in my open drivers window...Rule No 1 dont turn your back on these guys whew I dont know who got the bigger fright me or him as he jumped back 6 ft and this is where I took the pic just as he started back to come and lie down again once he had instantly decided I meant no harm!!


Luckily my big zoom focuses down to 1.9 metres and thats when I pressed the shutter at closest focusing...you cant get a more intimate moment with a lion. but I dont mind him having a kip next to the car but trying to get in or whatever at the window ...no ways

I said I'd do a bit of investigation, so here it is: records of lion movements from sightings by our researcher between September 2007 and March 2008. You will see that Kamqua and Tsama have more points as the signals from their satellite collars are added to the sighting points.

This is for Ardlam, Kamqua and Gina:


This is for Nossob and Bitterbal:


and this one for Tsama and Kalahari:

Thanks you very much Megan for making this information available to the forum. It makes for very interesting reading. The originals of the thumbnails is still quite small and a bit difficult to read. Does Dave publish his research reports somewhere in the net (something like what Guss Mills is doing for his cheetah research in the KTP)?

Thank so much for this info Megan. It makes a visit to the park a lot more interesting. I must agree with Lirritma that the origonals of the thumbnails are a bit small. If they were bigger the space used would make downloading a lot slower.
Lirritma - if you save the pic to a file you can use you pic browser (Picviewer, ASeeDSee, Irfanview, etc) to enlarge and get more detail.
Thanks again Megan

Thanks for the info Megan...but it confirms what everybody suspects that the 4 big males seem to prefer the Lionesses other side of the fence on the Non normal tourist Gorah Concession area along the boundary of Scotia Safaris no wonder folk dont see them so often and my sightings have just been 95% luck...I cant tell you how many times I have calls on my cell from both Scotia and Gorah game drivers telling me that the males and now Ardlam and her two sub adults are on the concession most days..so there you are Gerrit take the wife for an expensive weekend to Gorah and sit on the stoep overlooking the dam and do what their guests did last week and not leave the lodge building one day on a game drive as they had all 4 males within sight of the verandah!!!!...They dont take Wild Cards...Dam!!!!

I wish!! If I went to Gorah camp every time then yes...Gerrit Gus normally publishes his findings at the end of his research so we can look forward to really interesting stuff in 5 years time...the stuff you see on the Net is snippets

I made the decision to use this size because I don't want to overload the system with big files and have the wrath of the moderators upon me

The maps are meant to give a general idea and not specific points for people to track down on a visit to the Park!

Bear in mind that the distributions of lions will change over periods of time.

Current research is not published yet as it is not yet conclusive - results need to be collected over a period of time.

While my favorite Lion is Nossob...its mainly because he is the one I generally see first of the older coalition pair and this is what it normally looks like coming around a corner and seeing them


However over time Bitterbal has been coming in closer and closer and although with those eyes I will never trust him I loved it when he came within a couple of feet the other day for his pic to be taken

I used to be a tourist guide and visited Addo at least once a week. Although I've been there hundreds of times I never get tired of it.
I did see the lions a couple of times in the park, but I have definitely seen them more from Schotia Game Reserve sitting by the fence checking out the female on the Schotia side. It is a pity that the public don't see the lions in Addo that often, but that will hopefully change with more time. It also helps to go at the right time as a lot of people drive through the park at the hottest time and that is only good to watch elephants.
On one of my last tours through the park I got to get a nice pic of two of the lions mating. I have the pic posted on my Flickr stream (see below) and will figure out how to post it on this site. I'm still new here so I haven't checked out how everything works.