The month of April means the start of autumn and one of my favorite months for photography. The green, yellow and orange leaves paint a perfect backdrop for nearly every photographic subject of my choice.

The bush also reverberates day and night with strange lionlike roars accompanied by loud sneezing and snorting. The characteristic rutting calls of male impala.

The grass is also shorter now and this means that elephants are browsing more on raisin bush, bushwillows and blue thorn and there certainly are enough elephants around to make use of this food supply as breeding herds were seen almost daily. The largest were a group of ±80 elephants that were seen at Dead end dam on the 21st.

There are still plenty of buffalo around with 3 or 4 herds of around 30 - 40 individuals.

Rhinos were also seen regularly.



Lions were also seen nearly on a daily basis. Guests saw the York pride killing a huge warthog boar on Xigamba road. It was exhilarating and terrifying at the same time listening to the warthog's spine chilling screams and the growling of lions fighting for a piece of meat only meters away from the Landrover.



April was not a good month to be a warthog as we saw lions feeding on another warthog on the 19th.

Sightings of the month:

• York pride killing the warthog at Xigamba road on the 15th of April.
• We saw the York pride on the 11th at Ngaweni dam being chased by 3 young elephant bulls.
• A herd of ±80 elephants at Dead end dam.

All photographs were taken by Robbie Prehn during April 2008 while on game drive with guests.