WILDLIFE BLOG

I watched this young leopard for a couple of hours yesterday afternoon. She was very relaxed up in the tree but when the temperature dropped, she decided to come down. Having fed not long before, she had a very full stomach so made a bit of a mess of her descent! I followed her as she scouted around the area and scented various bushes, presumably picking up the spray-marks of the territorial adults in the area. [...]

All small antelope are overlooked because they are plentiful, spend most of their time feeding and don't kill anyone else! But they're very smart creatures (particularly the females) and will often be the first to alert others to danger approaching. I watched this female and a few others feeding in the lush grass yesterday afternoon. Almost at once, they all looked up and gazed in one direction. I didn't think too much of it to begin [...]

We have a large number of visiting migrant birds during the rainy months when the insect life is at its peak, and provides the best source of food. Woodland Kingfishers come all the way from Senegal in West Africa to spend 5 months breeding and feeding in the Luangwa Valley and elsewhere in Southern Africa. They are often found on exposed branches early in the morning, to catch the morning sunshine and advertise their presence to [...]

Spectacled Weavers are one of many species in the Ploceus genus, which are generally yellow in colour and build beautiful woven nests out of fresh grass. This female Spectacled Weaver is inspecting the nest which the male is constructing. When she's happy with it, she'll 'make home' inside with some soft grasses and leaves and begin nesting. However, this nest still has a fair amount of work to be done, so perhaps she was just checking [...]

It's not often that you find leopards together since they're generally solitary creatures. The only exceptions are when a pair come together to mate, or a mother is rearing cubs. In fast fading light, I found this mother and male cub feeding together on the remains of an impala that they had killed in the morning. The image quality is very bad as it was almost dark, and there were lots of branches in the way [...]

I was driving through the park recently when I saw a large elephant bull pushing through the bushes towards the road. He seemed agitated so I moved forward to avoid blocking his path and waited to see what would happen. As he approached me, he bashed through the bush near the road, creating a nice image of excitement and nervousness. After approaching my vehicle and sniffing all around me, he crossed the road and dropped down [...]

The park is covered in lush new grass growth as the rains continue to fall. On a bright, sunny day, the verdant green is almost unreal, and must certainly appear so to anyone who hasn't been here. I found this little Puku calf on his own in the flooded grasslands yesterday. His mother was feeding in the distance and would have returned to feed him before nightfall.

I was approached by a very calm zebra the other day, and I had my longest lens attached, so I took some abstract portraits while he posed.

I took a pro photographer out on a drive the other day and we found a leopard cub very early in the drive. He seemed very relaxed so we decided that we would try to spend the rest of the drive with him if he hung around. We know this cub, and we know that he's still fairly dependent on his mother for food, although he will certainly be killing small prey on his own too. [...]

African Skimmers are a relative of the Terns, and they hunt by dragging the lower part of their beak in the water, and snapping shut when they feel a fish. In the Luangwa, they're most visible when there are exposed sandbars which provide good breeding grounds, and since the water levels haven't yet risen, there are still many Skimmers around. I watched this pair and their chick hunting up and down the river at last light.

The Carmine Bee-eaters are still in the Luangwa in huge numbers. Most of them are concentrated along the sandy rivers where they are rearing chicks in nest holes excavated into the banks. Trying to photograph them is a frustrating business as they are very agile and change direction in the blink of an eye. I found that if you followed the movements of an individual bird, you could tell which group of nest holes it was [...]

Night drives often throw up something a bit unusual. Wood Owls are not rare, and in fact, you'll hear them almost anywhere if you listen for them, but they don't often sit still for very long! We found this one in an Ebony grove with lots of mature trees, a perfect habitat for a pair of owls. Although we only saw one, we could hear its mate calling nearby.