lions on the road! The disperse pride, 5 young males and 3 females with youngsters, all playing beside the road. What a start to the morning! The brisk start to the day continued to produce really nice Pilanesberg sightings with springboks pronking, wildebeest fighting, elephants walking past the car and the local fish eagle breeding pair having a bit of a duet.

After a relaxed coffee stop at

fish eagle picnic spot I get an update, “I’ve got 3 cheetahs on a kill”. My heart sank, we were quite close to the action and got there just as they had dragged it underneath a tree. Three cheetah brothers with a zebra kill, the only cheetahs that we know of in the Pilanesberg National Park. They were extremely shy of the vehicles and would run at the sound of an engine. Not that morning, it was by far the best cheetah sighting we have had, they didn’t even take notice of us, all 3 eating about 30-40 meters away!  Every now and then a jackal would come too close and try his luck at stealing a piece of the prized zebra carcass, but then one greedy brother would defend it and chase them away.

Incredible Pilanesberg Sightings

After filling up the memory cards with amazing photos we left them to sleep for the day, and drove back to the lodge very chuffed with such an amazing

morning game drive. When we got back the whole lodge was ‘buzzing’ with the morning events, but the highlight was definitely the shy spotted cats in everyone’s opinion.

Ranger

Evan van Niekerk