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AstroMatt,Lion Queen and Wanderw,

Yes,we had an incredible trip with a lot of beautiful Leopard's sightings without speaking of all the close sightings of Lions,Cheetah and more general game .
In comparison with February 2010,the sightings were very different ,even for birding.
In the wilderness camps,we had visitors nearly every evening and night in good numbers,and the meals were often quite disturbed ;but what can you say when you have so lovely visitors as Tsamma drinking at the waterhole and after chasing rabbits around your bungalow
The park was very dry last January,very few rains,and not at all green with a lot of flowers as last year,but nevertheless very beautiful

2011 - Beautiful pix of Kanna at Grootkolk waterhole! Her range is from Kannaguass to Unions End. What date in August did you see her, and at what time of day?

2009 - ? Sorry, can't help with the video clip. Hopefully someone will help out soon. Perhaps you can take a video still pix and upload it in the mean time?

KG recently put up two pictures of a leopard scent marking one of his camera traps.



From the spots on the right rear i'm 100% sure this is Dakotah (compare to the side pic in the guide).
This is great news as it is the first sighting of him in over 2 years. Well done KG on collecting some really important data on this cat.

Apparently there has been a lot of recent leopard activity around Leeuwdril, which is where one of the traps has been recently, so fingers crossed we get some more great images to identify.

If any one has any recent leopard sightings then it would be great if you can send them to me and post them here.

Cheers

Hi All

Some of the leopards we saw on our trip in April 2012.

This was the evening of 10 April 2012 at the Urikarus waterhole.

Terrible photo I know, but for me that is now the norm!!!



She came walking under our cabin ( nr 3) and then a hyena chased her into the tree in front of unit 4. When the hyena left she got out and just sat there staring at the waterhole.

certainly Tsamma, the juv. femelle, we saw too in January
well done lion queen, had to be wow... in the tree just in front

This one was seen just north of Urikarus camp on 11 April 2012

My excuse for the bad photos this time, will be that the leopard was a bit camera shy.............

Hi AstroMatt

I send you e-mail with some photo's of our sighting on 14 April.
Hope it will be useful.

We saw these Leopards (mom & daughter) @ Urikaruus waterhole

This young lady about 2km south of Urikaruus (99% sure was one of the ladies seen @ camp)



Also this love;y lady @ Montrose

magnificent

@lion queen and Michael Borcherds - Thanx for posting!

For the forumites interested in this thread:
lion queen:
10 April at Urikaruus! How exciting! I cannot make a positive ID as Tsamma. Perhaps AsroMatt will be able to make out a better spot pattern with your original pic.
11 April North of Urikaruus - Lovely sighting of Barolong!

Michael Borcherds:
Sighting at Urikaruus:
1st pic - Tsamma
2nd pic - Barolong
3rd pic - Tsamma
4th pic - Barolong
5th pic - Tsamma
6th pic - Barolong lying down, Tsamma standing
2km south of Urikaruus - Tsamma
Montrose beauty - Miera (3 pix)

Thanx again for sharing!

Dantheman - if at all possible , could you please post your Tierkop sighting pix on this thread.

Great sightings Lion Queen and Michael.

Wanderw i agree with all your identifications

Hi everyone,
So after a long wait here is the next edition of the guide (available at http://www.ast.uct.ac.za/~schurch/leopards/). It has gone through a lot of changes since the last version so i would suggest you download a new version.

Firstly, I've split the guide up into two sections, one for leopards sighted within the last 2 years and one for older historical leopards. This should help a little in narrowing down future identifications as you should first check the recent section and then go to the older leopards. The leopards in these sections will continually change as some get relegated and others promoted. I've also arranged it so that when you look at a double page all you will see is the information and pictures for one leopard.

There are a number of new leopards, in particular
Amur - Named in honour of the very rare Amur leopards found in Russia and Siberia.
Ingwe - Our first dune road leopard. Ingwe means leopard in Zulu or Xhosa.
N!xau - He/she was found in an old trip report. A really useful addition to the northern leopards. Named after the bushman actor from the film "The Gods must be Crazy"
L-2 and L-3 - These are two leopards found in historical records from quite a few years ago. We have decided not to name them as it doesn't really make a huge amount of sense as they haven't been seen in such a long time. However, if you do have any reports of them (or other leopards) over the years please do report them, these are really useful sightings as it can give us an idea how the population has/is changing. So any old sightings you have of any leopards do please send them in to me using the sighting sheet.

We've also have a few family link discoveries.

The Auchterlonie Male and Female are actually mother and son.
Barolong is actually a female and is Tsamma's mother.

There have been many updated pictures, but notable changes are, Dakotah, Rooibrak, Barolong, Tsamma, No.12 and Twin.

We have also recently had a sighting of our first dune leopard at Bitterpan. At the moment i don't have sufficient pics to make a page so this will be a future update in the next month or so.

As always do please send me any comments....and sightings
Finally, thanks to you all for sending in your pictures and sightings. This guide and work isn't possible without your help and reports.

Cheers
Astromatt

thank you very much wanderw and AstroMatt
and to all persons involved in this thread

Brilliant new edition to the Leopard ID Guide! Thank you AstroMatt!