Join us as we take you on a journey of a day we spent with Poppy, a very special leopard, at Kavinga Safari Camp.
Many of you who’ve been on safari with us at Kavinga will know of (or perhaps would’ve been lucky enough to even see) Poppy the leopard. Poppy’s territory incorporates camp and, thanks to our head guide Dylan spending many hours with her as a cub during Covid, she is comfortable around the game vehicles. We also regularly see her at the camp pan and sometimes even around camp. Earlier this year we saw signs suggesting she was pregnant. Dylan found her den a few months ago and since then we’ve been incredibly fortunate to see her with cubs on a few occasions.
A glimpse of a leopard’s day
This past weekend some of our guests were privileged enough to experience just a bit of what Poppy gets up to on an average day. It started at the end of a sunset game drive, when Dylan spotted her near room seven. She was on a baboon kill and our guests sat and watched her eating before she went down to the pan for a drink.
The next morning on our way out for a bush walk we took a chance to see if she was still around. Luckily enough, she was back on her kill just a few metres away from where she had been the night before. Needless to say, the plans for a bush walk were quickly cancelled! Poppy ate for a while, and then picked up what was left of the carcass and walked right by the vehicle, stashing it in a thicket.
We lost sight of her for a bit, but just when it seemed like she had disappeared for the day we noticed fresh tracks – and then she suddenly popped up on a ridge nearby. We watched her attempt to hunt an impala opportunistically before she walked right past the game viewer again. Poppy then headed towards one of the baobab ridges behind camp.
After watching her through binoculars for a little while we heard her calling for her cubs. All of a sudden it seemed like we could see two leopards, although we weren’t sure as we were quite a distance away. We moved to get a better view, and although we were still a little way off, we were treated to a lovely sighting of Poppy and two small little cubs. How unbelievably special!
This was only the fourth time she’s been seen with her cubs. They’re still incredibly small, so we’ve got all our fingers crossed that they make it. As we all know, nature is tough and very unpredictable.
Thanks to Mthuli Ngwenya and Judes Armstrong for their photos