A while back, I wrote about a female leopard who was bringing up a couple of young cubs nearby. We’ve been watching them grow up over the last 6 months and have enjoyed watching them playing together and learning the skills they’ll need later on. The male cub is growing fast and becoming fairly adventurous – he’s twice got himself in trouble with baboons, and his mother has had to rescue him!
Yesterday, I found them playing in the trees, alternately chasing each other and then dropping to the ground to terrorize some nearby antelope. Fascinating that impala respond just as nervously to a couple of cubs ‘stalking’ them in full daylight, as they would to the mother approaching under cover of darkness – whatever the size of leopard, antelope know to fear that spotty coat!
It was an overcast morning, so it was hard photographing them chasing each other in the trees, but when they dropped to the ground, we could watch them more easily.
Eventually, they took up positions on separate branches to rest.
