Our first full day at Pom Pom started with a thunderstorm and rain, which passed quickly and did not delay our planned early start, with a 5am wake-up call, quick light breakfast and out on our game drive by 5:45am.
Very soon our excellent guiding team found a male leopard, who seemed to be sniffing around for something. He had a deformed tail, possibly previously injured and healed with a deformity, but this did not seem to bother him too much. He did interrupt his sniffing to pose for a few quick photos.
We followed him until he eventually reached a tree in which there was a half eaten impala, possibly a kill left behind by another leopard. This one may have been sniffing around because he had gotten the scent and was looking for it. He proceeded to jump into the tree and enjoy the leftovers.
We received information that lions had killed a wildebeest nearby and proceeded to that site, where we found two lions, shortly joined by a third. The beautiful morning light after the rain, offered more opportunity for low angle photos.
Moving along, almost unbelievably, we found a female leopard and her cub. We had been informed of their presence in the vicinity and that hyenas had stolen their food. Mom was resting on a tree stump and junior was lying in a nearby tree.
When the mom started stirring, she offered excellent photo opportunities with the partly cloudy skies in the background.
When she got up, she called her cub down from the tree and they strolled along to where a dead impala was lying under a bush, presumably another kill she had made after losing her first one to they hyenas. She looked like she had already eaten and the cub started to eat.
With the day just a few hours old, we had already had the most amazing sightings and in between, a few other photo opportunities with Warthog, Red-billed Oxpecker, Lilac-breasted Roller, Striped Kingfisher, Fish Eagle and others.
By 11am we returned to camp for brunch, then settling into the usual rhythm of these photography trips: download and backup photos and video, charge camera batteries and clear memory cards to get ready for the next session. “Siesta time” was spent processing photos instead of resting.
At 4pm we went for “high tea” before starting out at 4:30pm for our afternoon drive. We spent some time trying (wholly unsuccessfully in my case) to photograph Carmine Bee-eaters in flight. After spending a while watching Pied Kingfishers hover, fish and fight, we proceeded to find a beautiful male lion, lying in the grass, looking interested.
Soon, he got up and started walking with intent. When we looked around, we saw a lioness approaching enthusiastically from behind. They met up and he started following her.
She made him work hard for it, but eventually he caught up and the relationship was consummated.
Returning back to camp after sunset, we stopped briefly to watch hippo’s emerge from their pool.
Reflecting on the day, even though we did not find the Painted Wolves, it had been almost too good to be true, an amazing experience. Throughout the day, Ryder and Zuma had managed to get us the most amazing sightings and Grant had made the occasional invaluable comment, helping us to get great photos and video.
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Etienne's Camera 