So much of the enjoyment of watching animals comes from catching a glimpse into the story of their lives. It’s not merely about just seeing the animals but about getting to know them through their interactions, trials, tribulations and successes. It’s lucky enough to get a mere snapshot but on a recent trip to Londolozi we got the full reel.

On one of our morning’s, we decided we were going to look for a specific female leopard. This particular leopard has been named the Three Rivers Female based on where she first established her territory at the confluence of the Sand, Manyelethi and Mlowathi Rivers on Londolozi’s neighbouring concession, Mala Mala. She had a 4 month old cub and knowing she had finished a kill the day before we decided to track her down as we knew she’d be on the move.

With our excellent guide and tracker team, Andrea Sithole and Sersant Sibuyi, we managed to find her quickly. She was in an established Tamboti grove moving from large tree to large tree, spraying urine onto the trunk and lower hanging leaves to demarcate her territory to other leopards.

She popped out onto an open clearing with a herd of impala standing at the far edge of it. The impala were exposed and there was no way she would be able to hunt them. Fortuitously for us, it changed the leopard’s chosen direction.

Quietly she dipped back into the thicket and worked her way along the edge of it. Birds alarm called at her as she went on her way and she lifted her tail, curling it upwards and forward towards her lower back, exposing the white tip underneath it. Her very own peace flag.

A few hundred meters on she suddenly became completely still; only the very tip, of her now lowered tail, twitched from side to side. We looked more closely through the brush ahead of her and could see fragments of a herd of impala, dispersed and feeding amongst the trees. It was the perfect set up. The wind was blowing from the impala towards her so there was no way for them to smell her. There was a mixture of smaller bushes and tall trees so she had plenty of cover to conceal herself. She lowered herself to the ground and waited. Whenever she had a gap, she would creep a few meters forward. There came a point where we could no longer see her but we could still see the impala she was stalking and we didn’t want to move the vehicle lest we disturb the scene. The impala, completely unawares, moved in her direction.

From our tense vantage point we heard the hit of flesh on flesh and the impala's distinctive death throes. The rest of the herd rushed off in a flurry of intense alarm calls and we hurried around the corner to find the leopard with her jaws clamped securely around the impala’s throat. Still kicking, she dragged it towards the edge of a dry river bed where the brush was at its densest. She manoeuvred the carcass into position and then sat for a while, catching her breath and grooming her coat.

It was now getting hot and there were some grumbling bellies in the car. The carcass was still too heavy for her to hoist with no meat having been eaten and there was no sign of any hyenas to create some action. Do we head off for a morning coffee and come right back to her or do we sit and wait to see what happens? We decided on the former and manoeuvred our way out of the bush which took a few minutes. On the other side of the thicket, we bumped into the leopard on the move. Ha! It seemed coffee would have to wait as we realised that this leopard must be heading off to find her cub to bring back to the kill.

We followed her for about 1km when she started to chuff. This is a puffing sound made through the leopard’s nostrils that is made close to where the cub is left. It is quiet enough not to attract the attention of other predators but loud enough that the cub knows that its mother is around. At this point, cubs usually come scurrying out of the nearest bush and rub themselves excitedly on the neck and sides of their mother. There was no sign of the cub though.

The female crossed through a small dry riverbed and popped her front legs onto a fallen log. She called again. No response.

From here things got more tense. We followed this leopard in circles, calling, looking, growling, her calls getting progressively louder and more intense, which you'll hear in the video. She backtracked on herself, smelled in different spots, tried new directions. I try my best not to get too attached to the stories of wild animals and remind myself that things are playing out as they should but I found the next 30 minutes incredibly tense. Could this leopard have forgotten where she left the cub or had the cub wandered off? Worse still, had another predator found and killed the cub. Just when we were starting to lose hope we saw the youngster bolting through the undergrowth towards its mother. We’ll never know why it took so long to respond to her but we all joked about how it looked like it had been woken from a deep slumber and just hadn’t heard her at all.

She guided the young cub back towards the carcass, where it sniffed and played with the impala. Jumping on and biting it, the cub re-enacting the way the mother would have killed it. It was here that we eventually left them for the morning.

For the next few days we poked our heads back there to see them. At different times we found them feeding on the kill, resting, grooming and playing with one another.

Leopards by their nature are shy, elusive creatures. In most places in the world, they are known as much as one can know a dappled coat merging with shadows. To have witnessed such a plethora of intimate moments is a privilege only a few places in the world can boast and one that all of us deeply appreciated.

Written by: Amy Attenborough