We were woken at 5.30 and then as it was still dark we recollected at 6.00am to have breakfast by the fire before heading out on a drive.
When we got to the pan we scoured the horizon;eagle eyed John spotted a lion on the far side - when we got closer we we realised we were with the whole pride, one large male, two sub adults and four lionesses - just missing was one male and two females. They were very active and clearly looking for a meal - two females were trying to dig up ground squirrels then we watched as they tried unsuccessfully to hunt a vigilant warthog. I am sure they will be feeding soon - the ribs of the male in particular were showing and they all looked a bit skinny. As we continued we watched a very hyped springbok male 'flemming', curling his top lip and smelling the air and his females to see if they were ready to mate then chasing off an imposter who got too close to his harem. The remainder of our drive focused on the bird life - a young pale chanting goshawk on the ground checking things out, a juvenile martial eagle, a bateleur eagle, shaft tailed whydah, teminck's and the double banded coursers, burchells sandgrouse, pied crow, chat flycatcher, ant eating chat, southern pied babbler, cape turtle dove on a nest, Namaqua dove, lander and red footed falcons, greater kestrel, black shouldered kite, buffy pipit, fawn coloured lark flocks of red billed quylea and the very vocal northern black korahan with his amazing helicopter style landings ; this was added to in the afternoon by further sightings including the sabota lark and the crimson breasted shrike - which we had heard yesterday but not seen.
During siesta I did have another good snooze as I am still recovering from the lack of sleep on our outward trip but awoke refreshed for our pm drive.
Today turned out to be a 3 cat species day after our morning lions we saw a leopard in a tree (today's photo) and stayed with her for 40 plus minutes only prized away by the sighting of a cheetah heading towards the pan. I got great pictures of the female leopard, the shy male she was mating with disappeared into the grass- only occasionally showing his ears so I didn't get any of him. I also couldn't get any photos of the cheetah as dusk was upon us and he was too far away.
That said very happy we returned to camp to refresh, have dinner and sit by the fire.