Just another day at the office, Part II

The best day of the week was Thursday 30th of July, or Leopard Day, as it will now forever be remembered. We heard on the radio that a female with cubs AND a kill in a tree had been sighted and of course we went in search of her. When we first arrived we only saw the kill in a tree and no cats… After searching for them for a couple of minutes we saw the female.

A little while later the cubs appeared and were chasing eachother around as their mother returned up into the tree to feed. It seemed to be a moment out of a documentary on National Geographic Channel… and then it got even better: two hyenas showed up out of nowhere and for a second we feared that the playing cubs would be in danger. But the three young cats had rushed up into the trees in no time at all!
Carefully watched by the hyenas, the mother continued eating and the cubs climbed around in the trees. After a while they started to get a bit too restless (and reckless) and one of them actually fell out of the tree! We heard a cry and in an instant both the hyenas where there, as well as the female leopard, that had been eight meters up in a tree 100 meters away from the cubs’ tree; the cheetah may be the fastest cat around but the leopard is probably the quickest.
The cub was never in any danger this time either, it had climbed up into the tree again with the same speed as it had fallen out… puuh! The hyenas left and the mother called her three cubs and they walked off...

and we returned to camp, high on adrenaline from this magical encounter.

/A