WILDLIFE BLOG

'A leopard in a tree' is probably highest on visitors' wish lists when you ask them what they most want to see! While it's never a guarantee, Luangwa leopards are often very obliging in this respect. Leopards climb trees to escape the heat and the flies, and to stash their kill away from other predators such as hyaenas which would happily steal it from them. We found this female leopard up in a tree early in [...]

The famous Pel's Fishing Owl, which bird-enthusiasts put right at the top of their Africa lists, are found at most large lagoons during the Luangwa's dry season. What's more unusual is to see them during the daytime - I found this one at a local lagoon while on morning safari yesterday!

I was out on safari the other day, and it was one of those mornings where there's not much going on....any activity from the night before has gone quiet and it all seems calm on the plains and in the thickets. We found this group of giraffe milling around on the sand at the water's edge. It's a place where giraffes and elephants often cross the water since it's very shallow and there's little risk of [...]

At Christmas-time, people often over-eat and then lie on the sofa and vow never to eat so much again. So too in the natural world: Lions gorge themselves and then lie around in apparent discomfort while their gut system attempts to deal with the onslaught. Yesterday, we found 3 lionesses lying on the sand at the edge of the river with enormously large stomachs. When one lioness got up to drink, we saw the extent of [...]

I find that Buffalo can be a difficult photographic subject. Lone bulls, or groups of two or 3 old kakuli are easier to capture, but they don't tell the story of the massive herds of several hundred which we often see during the dry season. Capturing the endlessness of a herd of 900 buffalo as they come to drink at a lagoon is a challenge I'm still working on achieving. For now, here's a couple of [...]

If you ask any wildlife photographer what what would be his dream photographic opportunity, I reckon most would choose to have a leopard lying on a branch in the morning sunlight. After 3 and a half years here, I was lucky to enjoy exactly that yesterday. The leopard climbed the tree and looked for a place to lie which was nice and flat. The branch was largely in the shade, but there was a small patch [...]

The Carmine Bee-eaters have arrived in huge numbers and are beginning to excavate holes in the river banks. Some have more work to do than others as some will take holes occupied previously by white-fronted Bee-eaters which have now finished nesting. There is a fair amount of squabbling over nesting sites at this time, and sometimes you can catch the action if you are fast enough!!

We're lucky to run night drives here - not many parks in Africa will allow vehicles to move around after dark. We use the chance to search for nocturnal creatures which are harder or impossible to see during daylight hours. Large Spotted Genets are one of the nocturnal hunters which we regularly see. They search for insects and small rodents in their scrubby habitat. Leopards are visible during the day, but are often more active at [...]

We know many of the leopards in our surrounding area, and we often refer to them by the name of the area in which they live. One male leopard has no need of such descriptions since he's very distinctive - he's huge (I once briefly mistook him for a lion in the distance on a night drive!) and he missing one of his eyes. I found him two nights ago right in the centre of his [...]

Kittlitz Plovers are small waterbirds that feed on insects in the sand and mud at the edge of waterways. I was crossing some sand the other day, and I found this one fiercely defending his area against a larger White-Crowned Plover. Eventually the larger bird moved off and the defender returned to his patch of sand.

Often photographers use black and white in situations where the light is poor and colours won't be rendered correctly. I've used this technique in the past and found it very effective in low-light conditions. But the best black and white photos should probably be taken in good light and 'composed' in black and white to take account of the greater role played by textures and tones. I put my camera on B&W mode the other day [...]

A while back, I wrote about a female leopard who was bringing up a couple of young cubs nearby. We've been watching them grow up over the last 6 months and have enjoyed watching them playing together and learning the skills they'll need later on. The male cub is growing fast and becoming fairly adventurous - he's twice got himself in trouble with baboons, and his mother has had to rescue him! Yesterday, I found them [...]