WILDLIFE BLOG

Christmas feels a little different here in the Luangwa. Hot and sweaty is the order of the day, with the high chance of rain being the only similarity with a UK Christmas. Here a roosting flock of Egrets gave us our Christmas tree. The hippos don't seem too impressed however. Happy Christmas everyone. Ed

.....have well and truly arrived now. There is long green grass everywhere, the lagoons are filling and the chorus from the birds is deafening as they prepare for breeding. I took a nice drive in the park a few days ago and was pleased to see that there's still plenty of game around. Traditionally, people think that animals move away in the rains, because they don't need to access water at the river, but in fact, [...]

You would think that with all the nice new grass around, the elephants would be content to feed and not pay much attention to anything else. Not so with this young bull who showed considerable bravado and aggression towards me when I tried to take his picture. Of course, with elephants it's their sense of smell which informs most of their decisions and my scent was drifting towards him on the wind. I took some photos [...]

As the rains arrive, and the storm clouds build, we get some awesome sunsets. Here's one from a week ago, and even though I've seen a thousand sunsets, I still took a number of photos of this one! And when you turn with your back to the sunset, you'll find a beautiful effect - golden sunlight against a stormy sky.

This is the time of year for baby animals. Baboons, monkeys, impalas, puku, warthogs, and especially elephants. This little one was only a few hours old. The mother's legs were still covered in blood and he was very shaky on his own legs. We struggled to get a shot of him since he was so well protected in amongst the legs of his family, but occasionally we could spot him clearly. Strangely, baby elephants are just [...]

It's not too often that everything comes together to give a perfect scene, but I was lucky to observe one the other day. Beautiful morning light, a clean view of the animals, gorgeous colours and a lovely intimate moment....some days it seems so easy!

There's a small spring nearby where many animals drink when there's no other water around. A couple of hippos made it their home this year as well, but recently one of them succumbed to the lack of nutrition and died in the lagoon surrounding the spring. Initially a leopard came along to have his share of the feast, but soon the hyaenas arrived and took over.

I was lucky recently to find a leopard hidden in a tree early in the afternoon. She was very sleepy and had a full belly so we knew she wouldn't go far until it got nearly dark. We continued our drive and returned to the area as it was cooling down. While watching elephants feeding on the sand, I saw a couple of antelopes raise their heads and look towards the steep river bank. Knowing that [...]

The Carmine Bee-eaters have been here in force for the last couple of months. I went to spend some time at the colony yesterday morning and took many photos which I'm still wading through. However, this one appealed to me because the flying bird just caught the light as it returned to its nest hole. Almost doesn't look real but this is the image from the camera with only a crop applied! And here a couple [...]

Two lionesses had been hanging around a particular stretch of river for a couple of days and not having much hunting success. Eventually one afternoon, they managed to kill a male Waterbuck which would have sustained them for a couple of days. However, as darkness fell, scavenging crocodiles had other ideas and began emerging from the water to share the lions' feast. One lioness moved off quickly, apparently spooked by the crocs, but the other lioness [...]

....it's tiring for a lioness. Hardly surprising though, as this lioness had a very busy day. Early in the morning, she was lying out on the grass with the rest of the pride, when she spotted a group of Puku coming out onto the grass in the distance. Identifying a Puku calf among the herd, and seeing that the antelopes were dropping down into a little hollow, she ran towards them. Keeping her body low to [...]