We weren't sure whether this blog belongs here or with the "Other Animals".  There were frequent visits from at least two porcupines between 26 November and 14 December.  On two nights there were two individuals interacting with each other.  On 5 December there were no photos of the porcupines at the cave, but there was a peacock-like shot on the camera on the lagoon path .

On 15 December at 04:22, we had the first leopard photo, at its familiar rubbing post.  Late that same night (21:20), there is a photo of the leopard making a very quick movement into the bushes next to the rubbing post.  The picture quality is not good enough to distinguish what is going on, but since that night there have been no photos of the porcupines.  There were no quills or blood marks, so we are not able to say what, if anything, happened that night.    There was one more visit by the leopard at dusk on 18 December.

This is our first footage since we learned from the Cape Leopard Trust that we have four leopards who regularly visit the cave. We were keen to try out our identification skills. There were two clear colour images of the same individual, one from each side.  We tried to compare them to the photos of the identified animals, but soon realised that it required great expertise and familiarity with the animals. 

Read the article on page 8 & 9 of the 2017 Breeze and see if you can identify our visitors. 
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The top two photographs are of the leopard which visited on 27th August - the bottom two are of the visit on 13th September.
Click the Comments below and let us know if you think they are different leopards or if both visits were by the same leopard.

The two photos above are the two different leopards here in Rooi-Els. We are currently trying to find different ways to identify them so far we have noticed that the one is more bulky than the other and we have confirmed their identity by their different spots.  Perhaps different genders, or maybe it is because there is an age difference between the two? It is uncommon to have two males in the same territory so perhaps this is the boarder of both territories if they do happen to both be male. Some more photos below. 

Leopard 1

Leopard 2
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some video footage of the two leopards 

26 Dec 2 a.m.

10th December between 5 and 6.30 a.m.

Our  visit of 14 October yielded no fewer than six different species of mammal plus two birds.   The leopard  visited on two occasions, with some really clear photos and videos.