WILDLIFE BLOG

I've encountered some of Nature's less adorable creatures in the last couple of days. First, I was walking in long grass on a flood plain and found that there were hundreds of Blister beetles sunning themselves on the tops of the tall elephant grasses. At first, I thought it might be their mating time, but there were singles and doubles and triples in equal number, so I'm not sure whether they were competing for females or [...]

These Greater Blue-eared Starlings are ant and termite specialists, often found on the ground in short grass areas. Their iridescent blue/green colouration comes not from a pigment but from the micro-structure of the keratin in the feathers.

Sometimes the teeth of hippos don't form in the normal way, and the canine pierces the lip as it grows. While it looks horrific, there are several hippos in a similar situation in the Luangwa and they don't seem to be affected by it.

There's something soothing about watching an elephant feeding calmly nearby. I'm fascinated by the textures of the ears, trunk and eyes, and have many photos similar to this one in my albums.

It always pays to take care where you tread out here. Quite apart from being a shame to squash this baby Boomslang, it might bite back. Boomslangs are readily identifiable by the enormous eye and the way in which the boundary between the upper and lower body colours always passes straight through that eye. While highly venomous, they are usually placid and rarely attempt to bite, preferring to slip away and up into the trees.

We spent a lovely afternoon at a nearby salt spring on Sunday. The area is used by various wildlife species who come to drink and make use of the coarse grasses that grow there. At this time of year, hundreds of Crowned Cranes congregate to conduct their ritual breeding dance. At this stage, the birds are still massing and there is little mating behaviour, but the sight of 150 Cranes on the lush green grass is [...]

I caught these baboons as the last rays of sunlight were bathing the plains with that golden glow. This troop were happy rooting for tubers and dung-dwelling insects until darkness fell as they were just a few metres from their roosting site in a grove of Ebony trees.

As it dries up in the Luangwa Valley, the dusty evenings give us beautiful scenes against which to capture wildlife going about its business. We are lucky to have a pack of Wild Dogs which have decided to den close by so we should have good sightings over the next couple of months while the adults and yearlings hunt and feed the female and her pups. I was watching them yesterday afternoon and took some photos [...]

It's estimated that the blood vessels in elephants' ears contain between 3 and 5% of their total blood volume. As the blood passes through these vessels, a few flaps of the ears cools it considerably before it returns to the body once again. Nature's radiator.

Behind the bizarre Shoebill, Pel's Fishing Owl is probably the most sought-after bird in African birding circles; the leopard of the bird world. We have a large number in the Luangwa Valley and we often find them near big lagoons during night drives. However, it's more unusual to see them during the day, so I was very happy to find this one sitting high in a tree when I was on a morning drive recently. They [...]

As I was returning to camp after an afternoon drive to check out the condition of the roads through some of the gullies, I noticed so Crowned Cranes crossing the sunset in the distance. Hoping to catch them in flight as they moved across the open sky, I moved to an open are and found them landing in a dead Leadwood tree in the distance. As the sun dropped lower and the colours intensified, I took [...]

.....is in the middle of Walking Guide Exams so very little time for taking photos, except to record new wildflowers! However, I did find this photo in my archives which made me smile! Reminds me of doing long jump at school!