SANParks.org Forums

Hi Evel,

I must confess I have no idea who the people were, they were staying at KTC and we at MM, saw them daily at Gertie sightings and got to chat to each other later on......we were it a white Toyota D/C and they in a silver SUV.

Aaaaah we told the couple in the silver SUV the morning of the 16th Dec, its great that the story travels

I have added more photos to my post

brave Gertie all that for her cubs
and they grown up... nearly the double than in September
thank for posting

thank you jacowolmarans
have news from Safran and her maybe boyfriend

Jaco welcome to the forum.....stunning entrace with those pics.

Evel that was a sighting of a life time thanks for sharing

sorry Jaco
welcome to the forum

Thanks all for the kind words and welcome! As a leopard newbie, I must confess I had a serious bout of "bokkoors" when I spotted N!xau. Within seconds, my foot on the clutch pedal went into such an uncontrollable spastic twitch I had to take the car out of gear for fear of stalling.

I realised this was one of those once-in-a-lifetime shots, and had to force myself to breathe deeply, position my bean bag and be calm. Twitching foot or not, I managed to snap off a series that thankfully turned out sharp enough to use. As luck would have it, the light was just special, the sun squeezing through low clouds just above the horizon in that special yellow colour that lights up the cat's eyes. One of these shots is currently being enlarged for my foyer:

STUNNING photos Jaco - thanks for sharing them with us - they really are special - and to see a leopard that hasnt been seen for ages, well, that's even more wonderful

N!xau has made a comeback

We saw him 11km south of Kannagauss on 24 December at 6.15am and followed him for 3 km for 45 minutes before he diasappeared into the riverbed and over the dunes

Stunning photos and sighting both of you!!!!

Beautiful! Glad he's back - and with him sniffing around Safran, hopefully we'll spot some cubs soon!

Hope so too jw

and there is another female, Rosa, who is also in the area.

only good news

Great pictures and welcome to the forum Jaco.

When I was in the park in Dec I kept hearing of rumours of a leopard with a cub on the Nossob side around the Lijersdraai waterhole. However, nobody I met had any photos that they could show me.
But I received an email from Mario Fazekas (kruger-to-kalahari website) that finally allowed the mystery of who it was to be put to bed.

Thanks to Mario we know that Safran is currently a proud mum or a leopard who is probably around 4-6 months old (age is very difficult so please take this with a pinch of salt )

Courtesy of Mario Fazekas

Mario's sighting was at 18:00 on the 22 November 2012.

. Safran... you are the best...
will try too find both of you in March .... but only 2 nights at Nossob
thank you AstroMatt and Mario Fazekas