WILDLIFE BLOG

A busy week has allowed for less time in my usual areas of the South Luangwa. I did spent a couple of mornings on safari (sightings to follow at the end of this blog) but before that, I had a number of photoshoot assignments and an interesting trip to the interior of the National Park to explore a lesser-visited wetlands in the headwaters of the Mwamba and Chikaya streams. My visit to Frank's Lakes is best [...]

Incredibly, another week has passed us by and I find myself writing my weekly virtual safari update... As always, this comes to you with my best wishes and hope that you and yours are well physically and mentally during this most challenging time. Zambia is starting to notice increased numbers of people in hospitals, more deceased arriving at medical centres and worrying numbers with breathing and respiratory problems. It has taken a while, but it seems [...]

It's hard to believe that we are now in July. Time is a very odd thing; on the one hand, time has passed slowly and 2020 seems already to have lasted a lifetime, but equally half the year has gone by and I'm not sure where it went! It is strange in the Luangwa as the absence of safari activity makes it appear that we are still "pre-season" whereas we're actually in the peak months now. [...]

We have had an unusual week of warm and cloudy weather, culminating with a short rain shower on the 30th June! Not unprecedented but certainly unusual for this time of the year. Fortunately, it was far too little to do any damage to the roads and it hasn't impacted wildlife movements; the gradual drying of the park continues. I also spent a fair bit of time doing photoshoots this week, some for product websites and also [...]

Another week has gone by with the world learning more and more about COVID-19. One thing that seems sure is that we will be living with it for some time to come. Nations are managing to reduce the infection rate to very low, and keeping it in check, but global eradication is still far from realistic. We all hope for a vaccine soon so that people can protect themselves, and those they come into contact with, [...]

She wasn't the first leopard that I saw. That was an old female near the Katete river. But she was certainly the one I saw best, most and in a wonderful way. Alice, as she has been known to guides and visitors to the South Luangwa National Park, was an incredible character, a leopard who defied the textbooks. Unfazed by people, content to be observed, often found hunting by day, she gave me a window into [...]

In September 2018, we started to see crowned eagles around the entrance to the national park on a regular basis. Sightings had always been recorded in SLNP but occasional at best. To some extent, large eagles such as this are always a rarity as they are the very top of the food chain, feeding on large primate prey and reaching a massive height of nearly 100cm from bill to tail tip. So the ecosystem does not [...]

Zambia's experience of COVID continues; cases are increasing slowly and active cases rise only very gradually as many are recovering well. 11 deaths have been recorded so far. Of course there is much speculation about whether the lack of testing is revealing only a fraction of cases; or whether the virus is really spreading much more slowly due to the lack of high-speed transport links across Zambia. Whatever the situation with testing, we are not hearing [...]

Winter is really setting in here in Zambia. Temperatures are falling to 12 or 13 degrees celsius overnight and morning safaris in open-topped vehicles are very cold! But the warm, sunny days are a blissful relief from the hot, sticky days of March and April. I love this time of year. The cool days do affect the behaviour of wildlife; baboons, birds and antelope can be found sunning themselves in the early mornings, sometimes to the [...]

It's hard to imagine that anything could knock COVID-19 off the top of the news headlines. Last week, however, awful news from Minneapolis achieved this, for all the wrong reasons. The death of George Floyd, apparently at the hands of State Police, seems all the more shocking when set against many nations' spirited collective fight against COVID. There are many things wrong with George's death, quite apart from the tragedy for his family and friends, but [...]