Jackalberry Lodge Newsletter

Dear All, Can you believe it is already mid-March as I am writing this newsletter! It has been amazing so far and the bush is looking absolutely splendid. During the past 2 and a half months we have seen very unusual weather patterns. We are grateful for all the rain we've had, but the temperatures have been fairly mild, very seldom going over 35 C and the thing that has been getting to us is the high humidity due to all the rain.
The strangest of all has been the amount of cloud cover we,ve had, where we will usually have loads of sun and partly cloudy afternoons, with a day or two in between with overcast conditions, this year has been more cloud than sun!
		The roads are in a hectic state, but no point in fixing them up until the dry season. There has been a change in weather already & autumn is approaching very quickly. With all the moisture in the ground I am expecting a fairly chilly winter, especially those early morning drives! You will all be happy to read that due to the change of season we are also allowing all the guests the luxury of only being woken up at 5h30 in the mornings, but within 6 weeks that will more than likely change to 5h50. As can be expected with the tall grass & here I mean TALL, at some places the grass will be 2m high, the game viewing has become challenging. The viewing however has been very good and if anything the smaller things are hiding easier, like the White-tailed mongoose or genets.

It seems like the Black Dam females went into false pregnancy, as none of them are showing signs of lactating. They were seen mating again, so we will have to wait and see if they respond!

The Cheetah cubs are doing extremely well & we were very happy to see them in our southern section again. The male has also been seen more regularly in the south.

We've had phenomenal rhino sightings in the burnt sections, with up to 10 together. As a matter of fact Van saw 22 the other day!

The Elephants have been moving further north on occasions, but have never stayed away longer than 2 days.

We are still blessed with great viewing of the young male leopard in the central section, as well as Ixongile, the old female. Clara male in the south have been seen around a bit as well. The female with the 2 cubs was caught on my camera trap close to Jackalberry, but weÕve battled to find them on drives unfortunately. I'm sure with the winter approaching we will be getting more sightings of them.

Overall we cannot complain about our game viewing & hope we can share some of our amazing encounters with you in the near future.

Until we meet again!
Tom & the Team.