I had started talking to Iain, Ann, Stacy and Katie back in 2018 about a safari to South Luangwa. None had visited Zambia before and two of them had not visited Africa before….so I was excited to show them this beautiful country and to guide the first-timers with all the enthusiasm that inevitably comes from that!
4 years later, I finally met the group at Mfuwe Airport and I could tell immediately that we were going to have a great time. The group dynamic was good and they were all clearly devoted wildlife travellers which makes the ‘job’ of a guide much easier. If a guide feels that he can stop and share anything that s/he sees with his guests, it allows him/her time to listen to the bush and pick up the smaller sounds and signs which inevitably lead to the exciting encounters.
We left the airport and drove the scenic 2 hours to Nsefu Camp, which would be the first of our two camps. This camp is right in the middle of the Nsefu Sector giving quick access to riverine forest, the plains behind camp and, via a shortcut road, the famous stork colony and Luangwa Wafwa areas. The views from camp are always fabulous as the camp is perched on the outside of a tight bend, meaning that guests have long views along the river in both directions!
We settled in to camp and, after a quick lunch where we discussed camera settings, we set out for the first afternoon drive. As always, I started with a few straightforward sightings, allowing me to gauge each guest’s skill and experience and tailor my advice. It was clear that they had good photography skills and that it was up to me to find the sightings, put them in a good position, offer some pointers, and allow them to get on with making great images!
As always, here is a summary of the trip in photo and caption form. I hope you enjoy following the story, and if you don’t already follow my daily updates on Instagram, you might wish to do so as there is a lot more context and background to the sightings there.
While watching the antelope, distant monkey calls led me to a nearby forested area. We scouted around and Ann spotted a leopard perched on top of a mound, with just its head showing. We sat with her for a while and eventually she came down and walked towards us. Lovely first evening.
We went early to the stork colony area the following day, and moved slowly around listening. We followed a hyaena who appeared to be leading us somewhere, but he then settled down. We enjoyed sunrise with antelope in the gorgeous orange surroundings of the stork colony, listening for alarm calls that might lead us to a predator that was still moving around.
There weren’t any alarm calls so we continued to search…and then everything changed! We came across a mating pair of lions in the grassland of Luangwa wafwa….
….and after spending 30 minutes with them, we followed up on very irate alarm calls which let us to Olimba, one of the resident female leopards in the area. She looked quite full (or perhaps pregnant – time will tell!) and was moving across the wafwa using one of her preferred routes.
This had been quite a morning already and we were all thrilled with our first 24 hours of safari, not least the guests who had never been to Africa before! While this was a pretty incredible 24 hours, it is normal for us to have spectacular safari days in the South Luangwa. There’s few places that can match it!
We returned in the afternoon, hoping to spend more time with the lions and with Olimba. But the lions were flat out sleeping, and Olimba moved to an inaccessible place (after a failed attempt to hunt guinea-fowl)!
So we moved to the river bank to enjoy the hippo at sunset with the glow of the orange sky reflecting in the water.
Early the next morning we headed south, hoping to catch up with the wild dog puppies near their den. They were active but only very close to their den so we could not get as close as we wanted, keeping in mind that the safety of the puppies is far more important than getting photos of them. However, we took some shots and I was able to make a video of them emerging with their mother.
The camp laid on a wonderful bush breakfast for us in the shade at the riverbank! These camps really spoil us, as well as offering the best wildlife experiences.
I decided that we should try again to visit the dogs’ den in the afternoon, hoping that the pups would emerge rather further, and that the adults would be a bit more active. We were “delayed” on route by a superb sighting of elephants in the forested areas around Lunga lagoon. This was one of the sightings that the guests had specifically mentioned so I was thrilled to find this family, with an accompanying couple of bulls.
The gave us an incredible show, both in the woodland and then on the floodplain at the end of Lunga lagoon.
There was no way to follow this, so we headed quickly to the dogs’ den…in fact I was concerned that we might be too late and the adults could have left the den already….
But in fact, we were right on time. The adults, but particularly the yearlings, were playing the soft evening light, and they were clearly prepping for a hunt!
After their play, they set off hunting and immediately found the carcass of a marabou stork at the base of a tree. They never scavenge, so they didn’t want to eat it, but they did play with it and investigate for a while, before continuing.
The dogs set off hunting, moving at speed through the bush. We tried to follow, guessing where their movements would take them near the roads. They pursued warthogs, though they don’t usually attack them, and when we finally stopped following and stopped for a bush bathroom break, one of the dogs chased an impala right past our vehicle!
Leaving camp early the next day, we used the soft early light, shooting when most people would not, and bagged some beautiful images.
As the light improved, we used the stunning scenery of the area to showcase the wildlife.
There was also time for families too!
It was cold, cloudy and windy in the afternoon and I had given up much hope of getting any beautiful images….
How wrong I was. Two lionesses from the Nsefu pride emerged from the brush and, through careful placement of the vehicle, we created an incredible angle from which to shoot their approach towards some antelope behind the vehicle.
After our 4 nights at Nsefu Camp, we planned to visit the wild dogs one more time before we went to the river crossing point to head over to Lion Camp. However, when I stopped the vehicle to listen near the den, to see if there was any news on the “bush telegraph” about the dogs, I heard the unmistakable sound of baboons barking their warning about a leopard…. It didn’t take long until we found this stunning young male resting in a leadwood tree in the pre-sunrise light, with the softest, most complementary background for photos! I simply could not have set it up better if I had imagined it.
Using the boat to cross from the Nsefu Sector to the main park, before meeting the Lion Camp vehicle.
As we were crossing over, I could see a large number of giraffes congregating on the bank of the river, perhaps planning to cross. We spent an hour with them as they dithered about whether to go over to the Nsefu side. In the end, we left them on an island in the middle!
On our first afternoon at Lion Camp, we spent a couple of hours with the two cubs of Chiphadzuwa, but they were very sleepy and didn’t move much! It was the first time in the trip that we had found a wonderful sighting and not been able to covert it into great photos! This was a reminder of the fortune that we had enjoyed so far and we were all happy to reflect on the incredible sightings that we’d had…and I planned to search for the cubs the following morning, hoping that they would be in a better location!
We spent an hour looking for the cubs but they were not to be found. However, while we were photographing baboons running along the top of the river bank, I heard baboons calling in the distance and I knew that they were harassing a leopard. We quickly found Chiphadzuwa who was heading back towards the cubs. We followed her and, with a bit of sleuthing, she led us to her cubs!
We enjoyed over an hour of the cubs playing with their mother and with each other. Simply wonderful to watch. The cubs also chased a large puku ram through the bushes which was amazing to watch, though quite stressful for their mother!
The rest of our time at Lion Camp was spent exploring the riverine forests, including the gorgeous ebony forest….
Small baboon, large forest!
Iain shooting elephants at a river crossing opposite Nsefu Camp.
On a cloudy, overcast day, we managed to get close to a herd of buffalo allowing us to show their details without the bright light of direct sunlight.
How a safari ends is important. While we can’t control it, no one wants a quiet drive on the last outing. In fact, we couldn’t have been more fortunate; the sun came out and illuminated the landscape just in time for me to find Chip hunting in the gully at Fish Eagle lagoon! While she was hunting, we sat on the high ground 200m away so not to disturb her, but there wasn’t any prey around, so she gave up and climbed up on the rim of the channel allowing us a wonderful view in the evening sunlight!
As the light faded, we left her. What more could we ask for than that, and it seemed appropriate to leave her to hunt in peace as darkness fell. She has two youngsters to support after all.
Thank you for following my stories and reading this blog right to the end. I start another trip very soon so this is a summary of the trip, showing just 40 images out of the 254 which I kept from this trip! If you would like to see more images, consider following my Instagram where I am able to share daily updates, even when I am in the camps.
