We were off-road at this point, and let me tell you, there is nothing more bumpy than a safari truck pummeling through the brush during a chase! We were bouncing all over, everyone holding on to rails so we wouldn’t fly out of the truck, all the while keeping our eyes on the action in front of us.
But within a few minutes I was proven wrong when we drove up to a tree and there was our leopard, curled up and resting on some branches that extended out from the trunk. She was calm and allowed us to pull up close to the tree and watch her quietly while we took pictures.
A few minutes later Bee stopped the truck abruptly, and listened. There were only two guests in the truck, myself and my good friend Rob, and neither of us had heard what Bee heard – alarm calls from baboons in the distance. But with the engine switched off, we heard them too. Bee said this call was definitely an alarm call, not a contact call or a fight, and that we must investigate. We agreed, and Bee continued driving and listening.
We’d seen ellies do this around the outskirts of camp, and Kwando staff had made us aware of the situation when we arrived, so we knew to keep our eyes peeled while walking around. But we didn’t expect an elephant to walk right in to the main area of camp, right where the camp fire normally was! No guides were around, nor any other human, so it was up to us to decide what we wanted to do.
… within a few minutes of leaving camp AT spotted some leopard tracks. G stopped the truck and they both got out for a closer look.
On New Year’s Day 2016, I experienced what is possibly my favorite wildlife sighting ever, and had one of the happiest days of my life. I’d been on safari in Botswana’s beautiful Okavango Delta for nearly a week. I had ..
Today I found myself thinking back to a particular moment during my trip to Botswana in late December 2015. On this trip I was staying for about a week, splitting my time between two safari camps, Kanana Camp and Shinde ..
Today is March 25, 2017, and it’s been two years since my first trip to Africa. I spent some time reading my journal entries from that trip and it brought back memories. It’s interesting re-reading my thoughts at the time, ..
In December 2015 I took another trip to Africa, this time heading to Botswana’s Okavango Delta region. Safari camps in the Okavango are very difficult to reach by land, due to being in a very remote area. Therefore, to get ..
The overwhelming majority of my photos are of wild animals. But, for my “stories behind the photos” series, I couldn’t help but post about some of the happiest children I ever had the good fortune to meet. On the morning ..