Akeru Safari Lodge

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Akeru Safari Lodge - Ranger diary
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Well, it’s been another fantastic month for us at Akeru. We’ve been treated to more awesome sightings and boy do we have some stories to tell you! Let’s start with the big guys for a change.

The Elephant sightings have once again been great and we’ve had a few sightings well worth talking about. We had a small herd of elephants in front of our waterhole one morning which was really great. We all sat and had coffee watching them before heading out on the morning drive.

There has been a very big male elephant hanging around Akeru and he is definitely in musth. An even bigger herd of elephants was hanging around one evening just on the edge of the lodge and the big male was obviously harassing them because there was a lot of audio from the females. It was quite special being able to have dinner and watch elephants that were not even fifty meters away.

Towards the end of the month we had another visit from an elephant. This guy came to the camp and helped himself to some of the plants and flowers at the lodge and later decided to push a tree over onto the ranger’s house. “Thanks for that!”

Eric, one of our exceptional trackers, had an absolutely amazing experience with an elephant while on drive. This elephant came right up to Eric while he was on his tracker seat and actually tried to pick him up using its tusk. The elephant clearly meant Eric no harm as he was able to stroke the trunk of the elephant while it proceeded to smell and feel him. The elephant eventually got bored and slowly and gently moved away from Eric taking no further notice of the vehicle as it continued with its daily routine of eating, eating and eating. Now that is something truly incredible! To meet eye to eye and touch and be touched by a one of Africa’s biggest and strongest animals is an indescribable feeling and an experience that can never be forgotten. “Eric I’m so jealous!” Apart from the above we have had other great sightings of herds with numbers ranging from ten to sixty elephants.

The Rhino story is still the same. We have been getting great sightings on the southern property as usual. The rhino are getting more relaxed with vehicles so we are enjoying more good sightings from the vehicle rather than on foot. There has also been a lot of movement further north which is good to see because it’s a sign that the rhino are definitely relaxing around vehicles.

The lion activity has been excellent this last month. We’ve had numerous different lions and a kill as well. A nomadic male (Woza-Woza Jnr) and his female have been seen a few times. Another nomadic male (Blondie) and two females have been seen quite frequently on the southern property. The ever popular Machatton pride have been seen on a number of occasions. Apart from these sightings there are three others that really stand out in my mind.

The one happened on the southern property when we encountered Blondie and two dominant males from the Caroline pride. This young male came running past our vehicle with one of the dominant males close behind him. Blondie disappeared and the one male started calling his brother who joined him and they continued to chase this young male for a good couple of kilometers. We eventually couldn’t keep with them through the dense Mopani thickets and had to leave them as they ran off into the distance.

The other one also occurred on this property. The same two Caroline males were chasing the two Sohabele males on the northern side. (The northern side is controlled by the Sohabeles and the southern side is controlled by the Carolines). The chase soon turned around and the Sohabeles then chased the Carolines deep into the Caroline territory. There was a lot of roaring and territorial marking that took place before the Sohabeles returned to their territory. It’s quite something to see this battle for territory take place between such fierce and equally matched opponents.

The last awesome sighting would have to be when the Machatton pride caught an impala right in front of my vehicle. It happened so quickly and it took about ten minutes for that impala to be completely devoured by the lions. “Wow!”

We thought we were going to have a quiet month regarding Leopard and then in the space of three weeks we had some brilliant sightings. Quite close to Akeru’s property we had a male leopard attempt to kill a steenbok but he was interrupted and chased by a herd of elephants.

A week later that same male killed an impala almost in front of one of our rangers (Marc) and provided us with a great sighting. We had a female with a cub on a kill. She seemed quite skittish but tolerated the vehicles anyway. Another male was seen on the western side of our property with a kill. Batman (that beautiful male leopard) was also seen but without a kill. He is so relaxed with vehicles that you can enjoy following and watching him as he goes about scent marking and doing his business.

Again this month we’ve had a lot of Dagga Boy sightings (old male buffalo) as well as a few nice big herds of relaxed buffalo.

The waterhole at Akeru has been quite active over this last month. There have been regular visits, as always, from our resident warthogs along with lots of giraffe, waterbuck, zebra, African wild cat, Egyptian geese, elephant and a leopard. “Amazing hey!”

We caught a quick glimpse of an African Civet Cat during the day which is quite special even though it was brief. Chameleons have still been seen quite regularly. Genet have been quite good this month including one that lay on a branch of a Marula tree relatively close to us and allowed for a great visual and photographs.

I had an amazing sighting with an African Wild Cat and a Black Mamba. The cat looked very interested in this mamba and the snake had to climb a flimsy bush in order to get away from the cat. “I personally feel that the cat had no chamnce against the mamba but hey that’s nature for you, there’s a surprise around every corner.”

Duik (our little duiker that hangs around the ranger’s house) is still fine and has been coming into the lodge quite often. He seems to really enjoy the flowers of the sausage tree which drop to the ground.

A new visitor to the lodge is a Leopard Tortoise. He’s been sleeping outside room four for a couple of weeks now. We’ve named him Gonzales.

Well we couldn’t ask for a better place to be. The animal sightings are brilliant and the tranquility and aura of Akeru make work and home an absolute pleasure and basically, life is good right now.

We look forward to seeing all our old guests again and can’t wait to meet our always welcome new guests. I can’t wait to update you all next month so keep your eyes open for next month’s diary.

Brendon McMillan

[erikb]

hello i was wondering where the best place to see large game in Febuary was? Is it better to got to Botswana or Kruger. Thanks for any help, erik

[Odek Fred]

Hi,

Botswana is good place for Game in feb. You will enjoy lot of fur here.