As a child I visited the Kruger National Park a couple of times with family and even as a youngster I quickly learned what the “special” animals are that you rarely see. The leopard was the only one of the big five that I never saw. In Grade 7 I was fortunate enough to be part of a school tour to the Delta in Botswana, where we were told it is almost 100% certain that we will see a leopard, but, we didn’t. It was not until 17 years later that I saw my first leopard in the wild and this is the story of the Posing Leopard.
In November of 2014 my wife and I visited the Kgalagadi Transfrontier park in Southern Africa. We stayed a few nights in Twee Rivieren on our way in, a couple nights in Nossob and then two nights in Twee Rivieren on our way out again.
We had amazing sightings, but again, the leopard eluded us!
Our final day in the park on multiple occasions we noticed several vehicles parked close to a large tree on a road parallel to the main road we were on. For those of you familiar with the Kgalagadi park you will know that there aren’t a multitude of roads to explore in the park, so we were very confused as to how to get to where these vehicles and obviously a good sighting was.
We eventually found a small road on the Botswana side of the Nossob riverbed running parallel to the main road from Twee Rivieren. We made our way to the large tree but all the vehicles we saw earlier was gone. We thought we missed whatever transpired there but perched up in the tree was the half-eaten carcass of a Springbok. We eagerly looked around for the leopard, but it was nowhere to be seen.
I remembered a piece I read a few days earlier in a book about mammals that only the Hyena has the ability to eat more rotten meat than a leopard. The leopard will return to its kill for days feasting on the carcass. My wife and I agreed that this leopard will return to the carcass in the tree, but most likely a bit later in the day when it’s not so hot. We decided to head back to camp and come back later in the afternoon.
3’o clock that afternoon we were back at the tree, waiting for this leopard to return. It was blistering hot in the Kalahari sun, but nothing was going to deter us from waiting for that leopard.
45 minutes later the leopard came walking across the ridge towards the tree with the carcass. This is it! This is what I’ve been waiting for all these years!
I could not contain my excitement, I took photos of every step as she moved past us (I’m not certain of the sex of the leopard though).
She climbed up into the tree and started licking the carcass profusely, after which she settled in and started feasting on it.
The carcass was slightly obscured by the tree, but we could see she was especially interested in the cheeks of the Springbok. Every once in a while she would stop and peak around the carcass and tree at us with those bright yellow eyes.
She would take a few bites, then take a break from eating and go sit or lie down on a different branch of the tree before returning to the carcass for another helping.
She used her claws to hold down the carcass while she would rip out pieces of flesh. Her nails protruding and retracting as she applied pressure.
We could hear the bones cracking from where we were sitting.
After having had enough to eat she disappeared behind some bushes. Most of the other vehicles that arrived over time waited a while but then slowly started moving on, but we stayed behind hoping she would make another appearance.
To our amazement she did! From behind the bushes she jumped onto a large branch where she stretched out and gazed at the few vehicles that remained behind.
She turned her head in all directions, posing for us to take photos of her from all angles.
She chose the best spot to lie down, her beauty perfectly exposed in the late afternoon light, showing us yet again why we return to the wild time after time, searching for a leopard.
To this day this remains one of my favourite sightings.
All photos were taken with a Nikon D7000 with a Sigma 150-500mm lens.
Below is a video I took while she was eating. I apologise for the focusing noises in the video, it was taken with my DSLR.