Our guests were on their early morning game drive which was full of anticipation as one of our Rangers had discovered the tracks of female leopard on Marula Road.  The tracks were fresh and easy to follow thanks to the rains received during the previous night.  After following the trail we located drag marks.  The leopard must have made a kill earlier in the morning and decided that she would take her quarry to a safer location.  We followed for a short distance and then located a beautiful female leopard.  It was a young female with an Impala kill in the branches of a False Marula Tree.

We all sat in awe as we watched her enjoying her meal.  Suddenly something caught her attention, her eyes were fixed in the direction of a noise and so were ours. There was a rustle in the vegetation, then silence, but something was bothering the leopard.  She seemed to know of impending danger and grabbed onto her meal as if she knew she might loose it. Before we knew it, a big male leopard appeared out of the bushes and leapt into the tree!  He pushed the female leopard off her kill and down the tree whilst he started enjoying the impala.

We could see the female waiting patiently at the base of the tree, she was obviously hoping that she would be able to return to her kill but unfortunately this did not happen and she was forced to leave the area in search of another meal while the male leopard enjoyed hers.

Photographs courtesy of Edwin Pierce, Lion Sands Ecologist