If you like looking at pictures of leopards, this is the post for you! 😀

It’s so great that we leave right at sunrise for the game drives. The morning light is is beautiful and makes the photos so much better. Here, this hyena was walking through the grass with that morning light.

After looking around, he continued on his way…

At this point, this is what the sunrise looked like. You’d think with the sun that high the orange glow would be gone, but nope.

Soon after that, we saw this stunning male leopard just sitting there in that orange glow…

We thought he was alone, but nope! We followed him a bit, and right nearby there was a female leopard and they mated. Look how huge he looks next to her!

We watched him for a while and then continued on our way. We saw some giraffes eating from the scrub brush. This one stopped to scratch an itch. Amazing that their long necks can bend like that.

Lo and behold – about an hour after the first leopards, we saw more. This time, it was a mother and her cub, albeit an older cub. They didn’t care that we drove right up near them. I left the front of the truck in the image for reference so you can see how close we were to them.

The cub was really playful. She kept coming and going from her mom’s side. This time, she came back and pounced to play.

After some playing around, mom started grooming her cub.

It ends up they had a kill stashed up in the tree here. The cub decided she was hungry, so up she went. That’s when we saw the impala hanging in the tree. It was difficult to get a good photo of this because it was an awkward angle and looking right into the bright sky. But, Jeff got a few good ones with his iPhone.

The cub thought she would move the impala, but that didn’t work, so she let go of it.

She licked it for a while, then decided to leave the tree.

When she settled back down, I got this great portrait of her. What a beautiful animal!

We stayed with them for a while, then decided it was time to move on. As we were leaving, up in the trees we saw grey go-away-birds. They are so-named because of the sound they make, which sounds like they are saying “go away”. Not a great picture, but the best we have.

The sky had some pretty wispy clouds in it as the sun continued to rise.

We crossed this river, going down and then up on the darker other side on the right of the picture. I like this photo because it shows how high the banks are. It’s hard to believe the water gets so high in the wet season.

Across the river, we saw this goliath heron. It’s the largest heron in the world, growing up to 5 feet tall.

We were heading to this giant Mashatu Tree and there was a large herd of impalas eating the dropped fruit under it.

As we got closer, they ran away.

We stopped here to have a coffee break. I like this picture because it gives you a sense of the size of this huge tree trunk with me standing next to it.

As we looked around, we noticed a few kudus looking at us through the brush.

We decided it was time to head back for a real meal. 😊 On the way, we saw the ubiquitous guinea fowl. They sure have colorful heads!

Onward to the lodge!