Botswana - Khwai Camp (9/13-15/2010)                                                        

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After only about an hour of cruising the area looking for animals, we received a call that one of the vehicles had spotted a leopard in a tree. We immediately streaked over to join the other vehicles at the the site where we found a young male leopard resting in the shade of tree to avoid the afternoon sun. We spent the next two hours observing this young cat and were rewarded with opportunities to photograph him as he chewed on a baboon kill he had hidden in the bushes under the tree. The leopard's snack was interrupted when a group of elephants passed by and one them started sniffing around the tree. Afteh the elephants moved on and he had finished snacking he climbed up in the tree and went to sleep on a large branch as the late afternoon sun hit him in the face. One of the great features of being on a photo safari is that everyone including the guides were there to get the best shots and willing to spend as much time as it took to get them. We were all quite satisfied that night in camp as we madly downloaded leopard images.

On our morning game drive the next day we saw a number of different birds in the bush including a pair of large Wattled Cranes. However, one of the guides had heard that a group had spotted a pack of wild dogs hunting the evening before so we were all looking hard for them. What we did spot was a large group of White-backed Vultures in some trees. When we went to explore what had attracted these scavengers, we found the very fresh carcass of young male Kudu in the grass. Apparently the pack had feasted the night before and all that was left was the bones. Unfortunately we never saw any other sign of the dogs, but that was not surprising because after a kill they usually sink into the bush and sleep off the meal for a day or two. We left the vultures to finish up and spent a while watching a pair of African Fish Eagles in some courting behavior. In the afternoon we broke the routine by getting out of the vehicles to do a walk in the bush. As mentioned before, walking among the animals is completely different than being in the vehicles. Whereas we could drive right up to a herd of impala, when you're walking they will bolt once you get within 50 yards. We walked for about 45 minutes when we got a call that another leopard had been spotted near camp. We quickly backtracked to our vehicle and headed to the leopard. This one was a larger male and was sleeping in a tree. Other than moving his head once in while, the big cat just slept peacefully in the tree for all the time we watched him.

That night in camp we heard the roar of lions several times during the night. So first thing next morning we were off searching for them. We found them just as the sun was coming up and we stayed with them for a while. The guides had noticed that one of the females was lactating and suspected she had cubs hidden somewhere in the bush. We were hoping she might lead us to them, but the whole group must have made a kill the night before because they all just slept through the morning. This particular morning was also subject to problems with a couple of the vehicles. One of the vehicles had a flat early on and then another one got stuck in some mud right next to a couple of big elephants. It took a while for the elephants to move off so that we could get in and tow the vehicle out. Later in the afternoon we went back to the lions in the hope that we might find the suspected cubs, but we had no luck.