Whenever my visitors and I take off for our game drive around the park to see wildlife, we get to the point during their stay where we have seen almost all the Big Five animals – lions, elephants, buffaloes, and rhinoceros in Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary. At that point we go on the mission to look for the tricky leopards.
Now and again we are sufficient enough to find a leopard without following its footprints and once in a while, we don’t locate this beautiful cat all the time – despite the fact that we look high and low. In several events, ended up getting to the point where I am so focused on searching for them, that all that I see resembles a leopard – leopard bush, leopard rock – however tsk-tsk, no real leopard! On one game drive fortunes were to our favor. We weren’t searching for leopard, in certainty, it was our first drive with my new visitors, so we chose to simply drive around and see what we could see. We saw some general animals like zebra and impala and a lot of buffaloes.
It was just our initial 20 minutes into the game drive when we located a mother warthog and her babies grazing. While watching them, one of my visitors stated, “LEOPARD!” at first I believed that perhaps he wasn’t sure, however as I looked to the opposite side of my car, there it was – covering up scarcely visible in the hedge – hunting the warthog. We as a whole stayed silent as we watched the leopard stalk. When the warthog was busy grazing as it looks in all directions, the leopard would move close and closer. At a certain point, the leopard was around five meters far from the warthogs and we were certain that we would see a kill. All of a sudden we just observed dust and the leopard running, however, the leopard missed an immaculate chance to get prey. Warthogs have had moderately long legs that enable them to run faster at the speed of about 30 miles per hour, this helps them escape predators because they are the most loved prey for some predators, including hyenas, lions, cheetahs, and even large eagles. A warthog being the favorite prey for many predators, surviving in the wild is a bit challenging for them. Their best self-defense is running too fast but when they are cornered, they a willing to put up a fight, using their sharp lower canine teeth – that look like tall, puncturing tusks – as weapons.
We viewed the leopard leave and cross the road just before us. We were all so excited after seeing the attempted hunt. What a perfect and amazing way to start a game-watching drive in the park!
