Etali male : Born April 2002

Died : May 2012

Mother: Dipelo 2

Father : Batia

Grand father : Leeuwenhoek male

It is sad to say that the Etali male got killed yesterday by a buffalo close to thlou dam. His whole rib cage got torn apart. For a lion that is probably the worst death getting killed by buffalo. They do it with such fury. The Etali male did have a really bad back leg as you all know so he could probably not get away quick enough. We arrived on the scene yesterday and his brother was busy consuming his remains, just didn’t feel right.

He had a very good full life of 10 years. His coalition partner Kgala is almost a year older then him.  They are the dominant coalition of the North-West and South-West of Madikwe , so now the Kgala male will have a difficult task ahead to protect his pride in the North-West. The Coalition that will be most of a threat are the formidable Lenyalo Coalition. They took over from Ditaba and Sepedi in the east.

Together they took over from thsholo and Matyea in the South West with the Tshabalala females and Maropeng youngsters. The ruled the South west with the tshabalala’s until the females got euthanized after which they moved up to the North West.  We saw them on a regular basis at Nkurru waterhole when they passed by on patrol. Hopefully that will still happen.

On the photo above are Tschaba pride with all their youngsters at The Nkurru waterhole.We will really mis the big boy and his brother as their roars thunder on the dolomite ridge letting all his advisories know of their presence. together they successfully drove the Naledi brothers out the South West to the South East. We followed these guys for km’s on their morning patrols. They have shared everything and we shared a lot with them as well.

They have given us and our guests great viewing pleasure in the past and hopefully with the Kgala male that is left the sightings will carry on.

We will dearly mis the Etali male, here are some photos in his memory.

Hi Everybody,

Hope you also had a great month of April ?

We certainly did from the lodge point of view and from the bush side of things. Well lets start from the lodge side, We haven’t started on big projects yet but have done a few smaller things around camp regarding cleaning and small maintenance tasks that we don’t get to do on a daily basis. The pilots room is finished and Stefan the relief guide are busy moving in , his first week will be  11th of May to 15th of May. The water deviner will come out to the lodge on Friday the 4th of May and if we get a suitable spot we will start drilling the following week, keep your fingers crossed we get good water.  We will have a maintenance week in June where we will do quite a few big projects like Thatch roofs and kitchen counters.

We also had quite a number of visitors at the waterhole:

• Lion
• Elephant
• Buffalo
• Leopard (4 times during the month )
• White and black rhino
• Banded mongoose
• dwarf mongoose
• 2 porcupine at the borehole
• Lots of general game and hyena

One day we did a different game drive and packed a breakfast and went out to the weir in the river and fished for a bit had breakfast and then got lost in the east and bumped into the big pack of wild dogs. Talking about them  both alpha females are highly pregnant so hopefully they will den somewhere where we will have access to the den, that will be great. We also managed to  get a black mamba in the vehicle from under neath, that was a very close call but we managed to get him out safely with no one getting hurt, what can I say it all adds up to the experience

Out in the bush we had great sightings as well, from leopard to the smallest bird. The game drives around vlei pan are probably the most productive so far. Parksboard are off loading round about 4850 animals in the reserve over the next few weeks

Game introductions for this year already allocated to contractors

I think that is great for Madikwe and probably some of the greatest and exciting news so far.  We are looking forward in seeing you guys at the lodge

Warmest Regards

The Nkurru Team

Hi Everyone,

I know the newsletter is a bit late , sorry about that that. We had another great month here at Nkurru from maintenance to sightings. It was also our financial year end and we had the AGM on the 15th of March at Le-sel. We just want to thank Andrew for making boardroom available with all the snacks and drinks. I think the meeting went very well.

I am sure you have received the CapEx sheet with all the projects. Thank you for all the shareholders who attended the meeting and for all the input.

We spent our holiday in Paternoster where our good friends Gavin and Heidi from Tuningi Safari lodge tied the knot.

News from the lodge :

Nicolas became a dad and Lebo is on maternity leave, all is going well with the new baby.

I must say of all my years in the bush this one was the year of the snake. I have never seen so many snakes as this year. In the 6 moths we had Bella she got spat in the eyes 4 times already by a Mozambique spitting cobra. it is amazing how they handle snake venom.

During March we didn’t have much time for maintenance but everything is looking good at the lodge. We finished the pilots room. I redid the ceiling in room and bathroom and gave it a new layer of paint. We also re tiled the shower, you are probably wondering ….why ? Well we are getting a permanent relief guide between us and Kukama. He will be staying in the pilots room. It will be better for the lodge to have a permanent relief when we go on leave. His name is Stefan and he is very responsible and great fun. We are going to give this a go and see how it works out. On a lighter note, on our last week at the lodge one of the guests got stuck in the lodge toilet, by stuck I mean the key broke of  in the lock of the door. They used all means necessary to get him out , when I arrived with my tool box he was already out

THAT IS HOW YOU DO IT !!!

News from the park:

You guys will notice that the dams are dry and busy drying up , a Madikwe manager’s forum has been opened on google so that we can raise concerns and points of interests in the park and keep communication channels open. Lets see how it goes. The dams , roads and bush clearing is the top points of discussion at the moment. I will keep you guys posted on whats happening. Sighting wise nothing out of the ordinary happened. We had good sightings of everything again.

The rhino poaching has been very quite and no more incidents in the park that we know of. Lets hope it stays like that.

See you soon at the lodge

The Nkurru Team

Yes the Nkurru Cam is  still going , touch wood. The amount of wattled starlings we had around the waterhole was impressive. I have never seen them in the numbers they are now in Madikwe ever, it is great.

This is what was happening at the waterhole over the last few days. Even a black rhino or two showed up. Just click on the thumbnail to view a bigger image.

Wow what a month we had here at Nkurru ! Great sightings and got a lot of maintenance issues sorted out.  Everything is going very well at the lodge and no major Hick ups. Currently we are getting ready for the AGM on the 15th of March 2012. We are getting quotes ready and planning on the projects for 2012. We will have the CapEx sheet ready in a few days and will be sending it  out soon before the meeting.

The only big problem in the lodge  is the baboons that come in and plunder the Marula trees, not that that is a problem but they are damaging the rooms and thatch. Nothing that we can’t sort out. Godfrey myself and Nic are on baboon duty constantly and will carry on until all the marula fruits have disappeared.  The week of 17th-23rd of Feb we had a maintenance week and gave the lodge a major clean up, this is what we got up to during that week:

• Oiled all the decks
• Oiled all the window frames and outside furniture
• dry cleaned all curtains and mosquito nets
• Power cleaned all the upholstery in the lodge and rooms including all carpets
• Serviced the lilliput and cleaned out reed bed
• Major bush clearing infront of room 4/5
• Fixing up pilots room and currently busy with that
• Installed new lanterns on main deck
• Built new boma wall in front of new staff house

That was what we got up to during that week. We had quite a few new visitors to the lodge waterhole including the big pride of 13 lions of the North west. This was the first time they have visited Nkurru Plains.

Game drive news :

We had quite a month regarding sightings everything was out and about. The mornings have a chill to it all ready and sunrise is round about 5:45. We had very rare and unique sightings like these Barbel at Tshukudu dam flushing tilapia to the shallower water, with wild dogs, rhino, zebra and elephants on the bank.

Something that I have never seen before was a scaly feathered finch trapped in the web of a golden orb spider. The spider would have never eaten the bird it was just a freak incident of nature

The wild dogs have also been around and they entertained us on a regular basis. The Thlou dam leopardess also shared some amazing moments with her and her cub. The young leopard is so relaxed around the vehicle and it is all her mothers doing. Hopefully we will have her around for a long time. The leopardess around Vlei pan also did her part on a big scale.  We had great interaction with her, brown hyena and jackal as she tried to defend her kill and succeeded  by pulling it up in a big Lead wood.

The Rhino in Southern Africa are under huge pressure as you all know, so we witnessed an epic fight between two bulls. That was a great sighting.

Early mornings on the plains are great and photography wise it is a great place to be over sunrise.

This is my story for February. We are looking forward in seeing you guys at the AGM.

I am ending with a few images from the Nkurru cam:

Warmest Regards

The Nkurru team

Hi Everybody,

Time really does fly we got back from leave a few days ago and we are all ready almost halfway through February. Sorry the newsletter is late but we are having a lot of problems with our internet, hopefully that will be sorted very soon. Everything is going well at the lodge and we had just over 70mm of rain the last three weeks. The bush is looking great as well.

Lodge news:

We are nearing the date for AGM so we are busy getting everything ready for the 15th of March. In january we didn’t do a lot of big projects , but we are busy with the staff area and are taking bit by bit. The building and cleanup is done and everything looks fantastic. Soon our pilots room will be ready and fixed up as well. What we are doing at the moment around the lodge is major cleanup around the rooms and main lodge regarding bush clearing. It looks great. Other then that everything runs well. Oh Bolivia enrolled for a 2 year part time tourism diploma, it is great that the staff want to better themselves.

We also had a very unwelcome visitor in the office one afternoon a Mozambique spitting cobra. We got him out safely and everybody can still see and is ok:)

Sightings at the waterhole the last month:

• Leopard twice
• Buffalo
• elephant
• Hyena brown and spotted
• General game by the hundreds almost everyday
• Giraffe
• White rhino every evening

The birding at the moment is also phenomenal and we had great sightings of different birds like black cuckoo shrikes to Willow warblers. I have found a Cape penduline tit’s nest with a few tenants. As soon as I have images I will share with you guys

We also stopped one morning to spend some time photographing the smaller things like this dung beetle

On a sadder note just before we went on leave about 3 weeks ago another rhino carcass was discovered close to Tholo Dam. On the 4th of Feb. 2012 ANOTHER one was found almost right in the middle of Tholo dam. These guys are getting extremely brave or stupid ! This is really getting out of hand , but we are all hopeful that a break through will come very soon.

Below are a few images from earlier this year and last year:

That is the story for a very quite January 2012.

We are looking forward in seeing you guys at the lodge.

Warmest Regards

The Nkurru team.

We still get the old faith full elephant even with all the small pans of water in the bush. There must be something in the water at Nkurru that they like

Guess what this is?

We did get some white rhino in the evenings as well !

One morning after breakfast a whole troop of baboons came in as well. Luckily they stayed clear of the lodge.

Well that was the story for this week at our waterhole.

Below is a few other images the cam picked up

Till next time

Warmest Regards

Grant

We also got our rifle at last after many months of waiting.  So we did our first bush braai again in a long time and had a great time, I must say the insects are quite hectic around the lanterns on the table, but nonetheless we had a great time as zebra and wildebeest grazed around us during dinner.

Things at the lodge are going great with no major changes during the festive season. All the major maintenance issues are up to date. We will recap in January on the clean up at the building site and get the whole staff area in order with the boma and braai area.  The guys are busy moving into their new rooms and are very excited about it. In the beginning of December I also redid our whole garden at our house with new grass in front and back, you are welcome to pop in when you are at the lodge next time. I also started a small herb garden that got sponsored by Simon Dabbs , thank you Simon ! We will see how long we can keep the klipspringer out.

We had just over 40mm of rain for December and everything looks great. We also had a beautiful full rainbow the one afternoon over the Inselbergs. Was one of my most special scenes in Madikwe ever.

Sighting wise we cannot complain. We got treated to magical African scenes here in Madikwe once again.  I am not sure if all of you know about Ditaba Sepedi that got killed by the Lenyalo males a while back. It was time for them to give the rains over. The North East of the park is ruled by a coalition of three now and they are busy mating with the females in the east.

The Etali female had 2 new cubs and she hangs around Tholo dam. I am sure that some of you who have been to Nkurru the last 2 months can really see a difference in general game numbers since the lions have been reduced. It is great seeing herds of everything around.  The relaxed Maukeng male leopard is also still around and treat us every now and then to a great sighting.

Every now and then we get treated to some or other special moment and one of those days were at Tholo dam where a big bull elephant played around with some lions.

I am sure some of you will agree that it is nice staying out a bit later in the morning and see what is happening at the waterholes. This specific morning we passed Thlou dam later then normal and we found some lions , ellies and rhino at the dam with some general game.

Here’s a few photos of what happened out there:

Hope you guys have a great new year and may all good things come your way in 2012.

Warmest Regards

The Nkurru Team

She is 7 weeks old and very tiny. You guys will definitely get to meet her next time you are at the lodge. For those who we won’t see over Christmas and New year  , have a great time and travel safely if you are going anywhere.

I also just want to thank Asher and Duncan who organized our rifle and brought it to the lodge last week. So the headache of waiting for the license is over.

Warmest Regards

Grant, Monique and the Nkurru Team

The following images were taken on the first night and morning at our waterhole. We will try different angles at the waterhole, but for now it is safe from the ellies….I hope.

I am sure you will agree that it is awesome to get close-up shots of the animals without them even knowing about it. It is quite funny to see the animals reaction on the light when it takes a photo. Some animals react and some just ignore it.

This buffalo was quite curious and really wanted to see what was going on, luckily the taste buds for cameras have not yet been developed in these bovines.

Hope you enjoyed the Nkurru cam update

Cheers

Grant