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April update: A wonderful caracal sighting

  • May 06, 2019 | Rhulani Safari Lodge

The month of April was quite busy for us as a result of Easter and holiday time. Often our lodge was fully booked. The animal observations remained at a consistently good level, which is proven by the daily statistics. We would like to specifically mention a non-everyday caracal sighting here.

One of the recent highlights: a caracal discovered on game drive by Sean

April statistics: Frequency of animal encounters per game drive

This little cat, which occurs pretty often in Madikwe Game Reserve, is almost never seen. With its small, supple body and the brown fur, which perfectly fits in the environment, this animal is difficult to discover. In addition, it usually hides, or runs away from an approaching vehicle before we can even see it.

Different this time, when our head ranger Sean discovered this caracal and kept his camera ready. For a few minutes we were able to observe the caracal up close. It sat perfectly relaxed on the ground and did not feel disturbed by our presence. Watch the video here.

This is just one example of how the African bush keeps coming up with a surprise, even for our experienced rangers. At the same time, we witnessed a real lion fight and another day, we followed a pack of wild dogs and watched them hunting.

Let's take a look at the success stories of discovering the famous Big 5 on a single game drive. Practically every time we saw the elephant (98%). Also very high scores achieved white rhino (64%) buffalo (62%) and lion (57%). Only the leopard hid successfully in April. He was only seen once.

We were following a pack of wilddogs when they were hunting