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Hi All

On the afternoon of Thursday 18th July we were sitting in the hide at Nossob, watching a long line of wildebeest coming down to drink at the waterhole, when pandemonium broke loose as four cheetah (who must have been hiding just over the ridge) exploded onto the scene and tried to catch a wildebeest right in front of the hide. Their attempt failed and a few minutes of general confusion followed, during which the wildebeest managed to regroup and faced off the cheetah, who eventually disappeared back over the ridge.

Unfortunately, thanks to a combination of brain freeze and camera malfunction, we have ended up with a very poor record of this amazing experience, and I was wondering whether anyone else who was in the hide at the time managed to capture either photos or video of the incident, and would be prepared to share these on the forum. If so, it would be much appreciated!

Never mind Annaluisa,

I have no record of almost all the kills I have seen because as you know know, they happen so fast and you sit spellbound. Just enjoy the fact that you saw some great 'action'

Well fortunately it wasn't an actual kill (or, being a bit of a wimp, I wouldn't have wanted to see it again), but it was the animal behaviour after the attempt that was so interesting - and two other members of our party missed it by minutes, which is why I am hoping someone out there might have caught some of it.

indeed, rare a Cheetah try to catch a Gnu, but maybe for four Cheetahs is easier
and has been interesting to see the Gnu faced them
nice experience

Yes it is apparently pretty unusual for cheetah to have a go at wildebeest, but these four looked quite young and earlier in the day had already tried without success to catch a springbok (also near the camp), so maybe they were still practising!

maybe the same four I saw in February, one had an injuried leg, so "only" three missed a baby Springbock

Amazing experience!

I was there too and I also missed it by three minutes! I saw them sitting on the ridge afterwards...

Would've love to be there.

Drat!!! We left on 14/7 for Twee Rivieren and then home. What a great place Nossob is.

Annaluisa,

Wow what a great sighting of the 4 cheetah.

My son had the experience of sighting a leopard at the hide on the 25 June 2012 around noon. We gave him a walkie talkie to communicate and it was not long that he radio in that the springboks suddenly ran away, a jackal pop out of the grass and bounced off and a spotted cat larger than a caracal with a thick tail appeared. He was so exited and ran to the gate to wait for us. At that time the leopard crossed the road only a few meter from him and started walking along the camps fence. He did not notice that the leopard walked towards the camp and we all went into the hide only to find no leopard.

Well at least he saw it. We opened the gate to go and look for the leopard not realising its actually very close to us. Just makes one think to check well before leaving camp and open those gate.

How amazing, and you are so right - it's so easy to forget that just on the other side of the fence and gates anything can happen!

Yes it was a wonderful experience, and as we had only been in the hide for 10 minutes, after coming back from a long drive which we enjoyed thoroughly, but during which we saw very little, it also taught me that sometimes it's worth just staying in the camp surroundings and spending your time watching and listening. But then as someone said, Nossob a very special place...

Thank you all for your comments.

Annaluisa,

What about a TR on the other sightings you had. Love to hear your experience of KTP in winter. All I can say it was extremely cold around the 13 - 15 July and 23 - 25 June resulting in very few cats, besides the African Wild cats that were not that shy compare to the Big 5 cousins.

Hi Son godin

I was actually planning to do a brief trip report, just need to get through a work backlog and learn how to put pics onto the site!

This is only the second time we've been to KTP in the middle of winter and indeed we didn't see lions as frequently as in the warmer months of the year, but we had good leopard and cheetah sightings. It was extremely cold for the first three days of our visit (we arrived on 13th July, just after it had snowed in the Karoo) and around TR and Mata Mata we didn't see any lions - though on a long drive down south from MM we were lucky enough to come across a lioness and 4 youngsters on the road at the entrance to Urikaruus camp. I had a chat with the ranger at Mata Mata and he confirmed that the lions spend most of their time in the dunes when it's so cold - he suggested we keep our eyes on the tops of the dunes as we drove along, as they like to lie there sunning themselves.

I will hopefully get down to a TR before too long!