WILDLIFE BLOG

We've had some fantastic sightings of these creatures over the last few days. I was even lucky and caught an African Civet in the act of adding to his dung midden (known as a civetry) - apparently nothing escapes the gaze of a camera!

I recently took a safari to the Nsefu Sector of the South Luangwa National Park. We were searching for Wild Dogs which are regularly seen in that area but they evaded us that day - such is life in the bush. Nevertheless, there was plenty else to see and the recent cloudy days had removed much of the haze from the atmosphere making the plains areas into a vast vista that we normally can't enjoy. In [...]

... and not very regal. But so would you on a 40 degree day if you'd just recently killed a baby hippo. Forgiven.

It was almost dark when I found these three cubs suckling from their mother. I pushed all the settings on my camera to eke out the last available light and managed to get some nice shots of the three. As it was getting dark, they were very active so rarely paused long enough for me to compose an image. Even so, seeing 2-month-old lion cubs is always a treat, so I thought I'd share what I [...]

As the lagoons dry up, hippos are squeezed into ever-decreasing sized pools of water and tempers fray. One way for a male to show dominance over another hippo is to display his massive canines by yawning ostentatiously.

It's not often that we see a sunset such as this in October. A cold front has cleared away all the dust and left us with October game viewing and April weather - astonishing.

During the dry season, elephants cross the river regularly to access better feeding opportunities on the other side. It's always a beautiful sight, but sometimes everything comes together to give something more special. Here I loved the dead trees in the water and the way that the elephant herd is spread across the river.

We spent last weekend up at Lion Camp in the north of the park where I run some of my photo safaris during the year (have a look at the link at the top of the page for more info). This is the very best time of year for photography as there's lots of game around and not yet too much dust in the atmosphere. But we weren't prepared for the amazing weekend that we had. [...]

I found this yearling female leopard when she had just killed a baboon. We kept well back as their adrenalin levels are very high at such a time, and their behaviour unpredictable. However her mother, an old female, was not so cautious and began to approach the carcass while the youngster was standing over it. Whether she was hoping to share, or to take it back in repayment for all the times she fed her daughter, [...]

I recently had a group of guests who were mad-keen bird enthusiasts and hoped to get great sightings of as many species as possible. We had a lot of fun tracking down some of the Luangwa's specialities and visiting some of the less well-known areas. On the last evening, we decided to hunt for Owls which we had missed up to that point. An area of the park around Mushroom Lagoon gave us some great results. [...]

In a very intense sighting last week, we found this young leopard and waited while she approached us. Making use of another vehicle's spotlight, we enjoyed some nicely side-lit photo opportunities.