leopards – Pelican Yoga

Indian leopard, Nagarhole Tiger Reserve.

Published August 7, 2023 by Pelidoug

Indian leopard, Nagarhole Tiger Reserve.

Leopards are members of a single species – Panthera pardus – but the eight (or nine) “valid” living subspecies have different characteristics, and their current fortunes/prospects are widely divergent.

Generally, across Africa and Asia, leopard numbers are falling.

India, however, is an exception; after the leopard population had plummeted through “the Raj” period, it has (from a low base) markedly increased – perhaps, by 60 percent – over the last two decades.

This post features one very healthy, confident male.

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Leopard, hunting (Etosha National Park, northern Namibia)

Published August 6, 2023 by Pelidoug

Leopard, hunting (Etosha National Park, northern Namibia)

This post documents the last of our four close encounters with leopards in Namibia during November 2022.

The featured image shows “our hero”, not long after we had noticed him.

He was to our right; his quarry (a springbok) was where all the visible grazing mammals were at that time – to our left, on the other side of the relevant road.

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African leopard, Indian leopard (teaser)

Published August 4, 2023 by Pelidoug

African leopard, Indian leopard (teaser)

Pictured above is a leopard, stalking.

He had targeted a springbok, on the morning of 07 November 2022 in Etosha National Park, northern Namibia.

Almost exactly four months later, in very different habitat we enjoyed our first Indian sighting of a leopard.

The next two Pelican Yoga posts will feature each encounter, separately.

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Our least interesting Namibian leopard encounter…

Published April 6, 2023 by Pelidoug

Our least interesting Namibian leopard encounter…

…was an extraordinarily close one.

Prior to November 2022 I had never imagined that I would ever find myself so astonishingly near to a wild leopard, let alone that such an experience would prove the least exciting of four leopard encounters, all within a span of about ninety hours.

This post’s photos are in chronological sequence; the first three were taken within a single minute, and the final image’s “moment” occurred a whisker less seven minutes after the first.

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Lila (the leopard) returns to her kill.

Published February 6, 2023 by Pelidoug

Lila (the leopard) returns to her kill.

This post is the “morning after” sequel to the one that showed Lila stashing her “prize”, shortly after she had killed a Red Hartebeest calf, late in the afternoon of 03 November 2022.

I took the featured image, above, at 7.55 am on 04 November 2022, when we returned to the relevant tree.

As you can see, Lila’s kill was quasi-intact, still “safe” in the tree’s canopy.

“When will Lila return to it?”, we wondered.

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Lila (the leopard) stashes her kill

Published January 15, 2023 by Pelidoug

Lila (the leopard) stashes her kill

My camera registers the time that each photo is taken.

It was 6.30 pm when I took the immediately-preceding post’s final image; Lila had then just ceased “snacking” and was sitting still.

Directly in front of Lila, probably still warm, also motionless, was her kill.

It was still 6.30 pm when Lila had completed the demanding task depicted in the sequence which begins with the featured image, then continues with the next three photos.

Almost certainly, I will never witness a more prodigious physical feat.

From “red hartebeest calf carcass, stationary, flat on the ground” to “carcass securely stashed in the tree’s crown” took Lila circa thirty seconds to achieve.

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Locating Lila (the leopard)

Published January 12, 2023 by Pelidoug

Locating Lila (the leopard)

The featured image – photographed by fellow traveller Ian Millar, to whom my thanks – shows John M (a very capable nature guide/driver/researcher/educator) radio-tracking a leopard.

All of the leopards in Okonjima are 100% wild animals, but some have been “darted”, then fitted with radio-transmitter-equipped collars.

Okonjima, in central Namibia, is centrally focused on wildlife conservation and research, which is in large part funded by tourism.

At the time Ian took the featured image John had located unmistakable evidence of a leopard having very recently dragged his/her “kill” across the track on which “our” vehicle was driving…

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Namibia (teaser)

Published November 4, 2022 by Pelidoug

Namibia (teaser)

On Thursday – the second day of our current “expedition” to Namibia – my beloved and I had our lifetimes’ most exciting (to date) close-range encounter with a wild carnivore.

The featured image’s leopard is coming back down from the tree in which she had just stashed “the kill” she had made that afternoon.

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Tag: leopards