Winter is really setting in here in Zambia. Temperatures are falling to 12 or 13 degrees celsius overnight and morning safaris in open-topped vehicles are very cold! But the warm, sunny days are a blissful relief from the hot, sticky days of March and April. I love this time of year.
The cool days do affect the behaviour of wildlife; baboons, birds and antelope can be found sunning themselves in the early mornings, sometimes to the extent that baboon troops do little except sunbathe and socialise until 9am! This, of course, gives us great chances to sit with them and document their interactions and behaviour. Predators, too, adapt their behaviour; leopards which have not succeeded with night-time hunts, or which have been hampered by a large, bright moon, take the chance to hunt during the day when scavengers are less active and the prey species are less vigilant! I have had some wonderful encounters with predators in the last week.
I shared a brief live safari via Zoom on a webinar hosted by Honour Way and Zambian Ground Handlers earlier in the week. It was fun to share something from the South Luangwa and, in a turn of good fortune, I was able to share a few seconds of a female leopard with her two well-grown cubs before they disappeared into the thickets….and I then lost mobile phone connection! As I mentioned on that webinar, Nature and the seasons continue as normal and the only oddity is that, at this time of year, there should be camps opening up, teams of builders erecting tents and supply trucks taking food, drinks and provisions to all the camps…. It’s eerily quiet here and we the “promise of the new season” that I have talked about many times is sorely absent.
So, as before, here follows as photo-and-caption summary of the week’s sightings from the South Luangwa National Park.
We started the week with lions! We took a longer drive down into the southern-central area of the park (which we rarely get to because we always find things along the way!) and located this pride in the Wakumba area. The male didn’t seem too welcome and settled down a little distance from the pride.
Here you can see his hesitance as he approached the females.
I then spent a couple of very happy mornings in the wild with Phil Jeffrey and Tyrone McKeith who run JM Safaris in Kafue National Park. I recommend their camps, not to mention their expert guiding, very highly and I’m thrilled to be taking two trips to their camps in 2021. We spent part of our first morning at the elephant crossing point, watching these giants emerge from the river…
It was an elephant morning that day…
Towards the end of the morning, we followed alarm calls to a sighting of ‘Lucy’ a famous South Luangwa leopard. She was relaxing in the shade while steadily moving back through the bushes. Her folded left ear easily identifies her.
Shadowy giants among the mature trees.
The impala rut is all but over, but some of the males just can’t help themselves chasing the girls around….
…and then pulling poses!
We had an early morning sighting of a civet, only my second time to see one in daylight. Usually nocturnal, this one seemed not quite to have finished his meal when we came along.
That same morning, we were following puku which seemed to be pointing towards a large area of thickets. We homed in on the area and a young leopard shot through the thickets and across the road…followed by another! I had taken only a fixed 500mm lens, and I was quite pleased to fit the leopard into the frame….just!! There followed a wonderful hour of play, chasing, ambushing and pouncing!
They played for a while, but were slightly nervous of us, so we kept our distance. We agreed to return in the afternoon and see whether they could be found again.
Setting out in the afternoon, I found a Western banded snake eagle at a small water hole…..
…and a very rarely seen palm-nut vulture! This is an immature.
We got very lucky in the afternoon, finding not only the leopard youngsters but their mother too – 3 leopards in one spot. Initially it was the two cubs who played together but they soon moved off and we had lovely time with the 3 of them. I’ll let the photos do the talking.
A poor quality image as it was very dark, but an amazing scene all the same! This is Lucy, daughter of Alice, and her two most recent offspring. A leopard dynasty in action.As always, thank you for following along. With best wishes from the Luangwa.
