Limpopo-Lipadi Blog

This month sees the first publishing of the new Limpopo-Lipadi print advert in Africa Geographic. The full page design, shown above, is complemented by online advertising through their websites and blogs.

Accompanying the wild dogs feature article we publicised last week this advert is already delivering with several enquiries made in the past week, since the latest issue was published on the 20th January.

You can download a PDF of the advert from our site and feel free to circulate it or pass it on to any interested friends and acquaintances.

Limpopo-Lipadi's ground-breaking wild dog reintroduction project is, this month, the subject of a special feature article in Africa Geographic. You can download a copy of the article on our site and read more about the fascinating history of our wild dog pack.

The trail-cameras have once again brought us a stunning set of candid images from distant parts of the reserve. Towards the end of December one was sited at Mac's Pan and has captured a sequence of shots of elephants visiting the trough to drink, wash and socialise - and at some point give the camera a nudge so that the rest of the shots are at a jaunty angle!

Limpopo-Lipadi is thrilled to announce that the finalised version of the 2012 calendar is now available to download from the website. Featuring a dozen photographs, taken by management staff and shareholders on the reserve, each month is beautifully illustrated. Get your copy now and tell all your friends!

Thanks to all of those that have generously provided their images for use and to Panayota for doing the painstaking production work that has brought them together so well.

Avid Google Earth viewers will have noticed that large parts of the reserve are now covered by higher resolution satellite imagery than ever before. This has been useful for mapping the reserve but along the way has thrown up some interesting spots.

A kmz file of some of these can now be downloaded from the website, that amongst other things shows elephants leaving a waterhole and one of the cruisers at Mogorosi - could it have been you in that vehicle? Isn't it incredible to think that individual animals can be identified from pictures taken far above the earth!

What else can you spot hiding in the bush?

Limpopo-Lipadi is proud to announce the winner of its inaugural annual photography competition. A substantial number of entries were received from shareholders that showcased some of the best our beautiful reserve has to offer.

The leopard identification project has got off to a great start and we now have identification tips for three of our resident leopards - like those shown in the images in this blog. Shareholders can view the whole guide online and download a copy if desired.

Maya has been so named as this seems to be an easily remembered shortening of "tsamaya tlasa" which is Setawana for "walk under" in reference to her habit of passing extremely close to the viewing hide at Mogorosi including passing right beneath while shareholders are sat inside!

As previously announced in the blog early December saw attempts to locate and dart some of our adult wild dogs to allow us to fit two additional animals with radio collars and replace the old collar on Two Spots, our dominant female. Shareholders and guests were invited to participate in this exciting event on the reserve.

Shareholders and other visitors to Limpopo-Lipadi will know what a great place it is becoming for fantastic sightings of leopards. Some short-stay guests have averaged more than one a day and shareholders staying at the reserve for a month recently had a dozen sightings of thirteen animals! The regularity of encounters now makes it possible for us to begin an ambitious project to try and identify each individual leopard and learn more about it, such as where it holds territory. To help us achieve this are welcoming the active involvement of shareholders! Read on to find out more from Anton Kruger, who has suggested this project, about why we are doing this and how you can get involved.

This may not be the greatest video of hippos ever shot - certainly the compact camera used limits the quality - but there aren't many places in the world where you can look up from reading a book on your sofa in a private unit and find a hippo eyeing you from the river only 20 metres away!

Folklore has it that the honey badger (or ratel) is the fiercest creature in the bush and almost mythical stories abound about them disembowelling buffalo and routing lion prides. However a recent event on Limpopo-Lipadi witnessed by some of our shareholders may suggest a re-evaluation is necessary.

Shareholders will be excited to hear that the waterhole regeneration programme continues apace and this month has seen work at Mbusi. The new pool is located a little to the southwest of the old trough but remains within view of the hide (as well as being sited perfectly for potential future hide developments). Feedback from shareholders has been used to create a reasonable size pool with an irregular outline to better mimic a natural waterhole. The low profile and coloured concrete mixture means it blends in very well with the surrounding soil and I'm sure all will agree this represents a major improvement on what went before.

Limpopo-Lipadi is proud to announce that the reserve website has had a complete makeover and is now available online. Guests can register with the new site to obtain access to more content including our trail camera photo galleries featuring candid images from around the reserve. Why not stop by and see us some time? A news blog has also been introduced to showcase all the new stories emerging from the reserve.

Finally got around to writing up some of the stories from our recent trip. It's posted on the SafariTalk forum (well worth joining) for anyone who wants a read.

Since the trail camera arrived on the reserve we have all been waiting for it to capture a leopard. Amazingly despite the numbers on Limpopo-Lipadi and the frequency with which they are seen by our shareholders they have remained strangely hard to catch on the trail camera. But finally this week they have showed themselves. And yes, that is plural for there was not just one but two leopards catch on the camera at Mbusi!

The trail camera has been catching some great shots of late, including the first arrivals at the new waterhole on the Northern Plains, but this week saw some lovely images of a pair of spotted hyenas drinking at Mbusi around dawn. Looking closely you can make out traces of blood on the neck of one, probably a sign they had been feeding on a fresh carcass shortly before arriving at the waterhole.

About 10 days ago one of the security guys who drives the fenceline saw some unusual creatures during his rounds and when he returned to the office fed back the news. Further investigations revealed lion spoor in the area on the eastern side of the reserve and this led to Bradley's email late last week to exercise further caution if walking in the bush.

Last night, 19 August, just as Thea and I were falling asleep after a great day of game viewing, we were startled completely awake by the sound of a tremendous explosion!

Like Chicken Little I ran outside to see if the sky was falling. I looked towards the staff village and the office, afraid I would see flames shooting skyward, but all was calm. I looked to the sky for a thundercloud, but all I saw was millions of stars. Remembering back to the early days of supersonic flight, I recalled the "explosion" sounded like a sonic boom. However, I could hear no jet airplane engine.

On the theory that all's well that ends well, and no damage done, I stumbled back to bed. Next morning we asked everyone we met, and no one had any idea where the sound came from. Until - we asked our excellent house keeper, Portia - she knew! She reported seeing a meteorite or some other sort of "space junk" streaking across the sky just prior to the boom! Mystery solved - the sky WAS falling!

This is the third instance of dramatic meteorite sightings at the reserve in the last year!