Part 1: Cheetahs on the move...

It was really pretty here a little bit earlier this morning at Fort Dam. There was some light mist hanging over the dam with a sunrise over it. Shortly after I left here, there was actually an impala that started a line falling behind me. So I turned around and came back up onto the hill and discovered the female cheetah with the four little cubs was actually sat right on the road in pretty much exactly the same spot that I was a little bit earlier on. All five of them actually looked pretty skinny so I'm guessing she's probably come up here initially to try and use the height advantage to scan for potential prey. They're now getting on the move, now actually heading down towards Fort Dam itself. I think she's probably going to spend the morning looking for a hunt. Probably her biggest challenge when it comes to hunting at the moment is her four little ones who are bouncing around all over the place. They're full of energy and playing and chasing each other which is lovely to watch but does tend to draw everybody else's attention as well. There have been a few other animals around. There was an impala ram a little bit earlier on. I heard a springbok as well in fact but they were all on the ball pretty quickly. The cubs sort of gave the game away and they were all aware of the threat and moved off. There's a secretary bird who's also out hunting here this morning. They're always a lovely species to see and hopefully it's having a bit more luck than the cheetah at this stage. It's a shame she's not really winning at the moment. It seems that the opportunities are a bit few and far between so far. Catch up there. It's a constant battle to keep all four of them in tone. She's just scanning from some of the high points here again and usually what'll happen is if she spots something she'll then leave the cubs stashed somewhere and then try and stalk and hunt alone and then call them to the kill once she makes it. Still no joy for them so far they've been sitting on top of this little high point for quite some time now. They might actually lie down and have a bit of a rest. They've moved far so they probably need a bit of a rest. She'll keep an eye out from up here if anything changes and otherwise try again a bit later. We'll have to try and catch up with them a little bit later and see if they've had any success by then.