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| Male lion at Twin Baobabs |
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| Odd allies - the warthog and egyptian geese |
So of course, that was our target when we entered the gate
at 6am in the morning and headed straight to Wamilombe on the shortest route. A quick scan told us that there wasn’t a cat
on the plain, but we took some time to photograph the warthogs. These pigs have peculiar habits in this part
of the world, where they spend a lot of time digging on the plain with their
snouts, resulting in piles of disrupted soil like someone has walked around and
dug holes all over. What is especially
amusing is that they are normally accompanied by Egyptian geese, that follow
them around picking out insects and grubs that have been disturbed by the
digging, so all over the plain are little groups of geese surrounding a warthog
patiently waiting for breakfast.
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| Fish eagle drying his wings |
After making sure that there wasn’t a leopard on the plain, or that wild dogs hadn’t make their way in this direction, we decided to keep going along the river the same way that we had the previous day, hoping that we’d come across the dogs or perhaps some lions. From our campsite, we could hear the lions roaring across the river, and although we couldn’t pinpoint exactly where they would be, we assumed they’d be in the direction that we headed. And we did find lion tracks and spent a bit of time looking for them, but to no avail.
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| Giraffes in morning light appear to be watching something |
Eventually, we found ourselves in a place called Wakumba, a
dry oxbow lake with a plain in the middle that attracts plenty of game. We arrived there and immediately found our
first Thornicroft giraffe of the trip.
There were about a half dozen of them and they seemed to be acting a bit
oddly but we couldn’t get close to them, so headed towards the river. There we found a big herd of buffalo, our
first of the trip and had planned to stop with them for coffee, but again we
could see the giraffe in the distance still acting strangely. They were all looking in one direction and we
know that is normally an indication of a predator and so we were determined to
find out what they were watching. We
needed to get closer as we couldn’t see anything with the binoculars but there
wasn’t a direct road, so we spent the next 15 minutes taking different roads in
the hopes of getting closer and finally after getting a bit lost, we finally
got to the giraffe.
At first there didn’t seem to be anything there and we were
disappointed to assume that there was something hiding in inaccessible bushes,
but after closer inspection with the binoculars we finally spotted the object
of the giraffes’ attention – leopard!
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| We found our own leopard! |
He was lying down in the shade, and from a distance he was
perfectly camouflaged in the fallen leaves.
We finally figured out the road to get closer to him and eventually had
coffee with him, with that buffalo herd in the distance and giraffes looming
over us watching the leopard.
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| Keeping a beady eye on the leopard |
He wasn’t inclined to move anywhere, rather just chilling
out and keeping an eye on the area.
There wasn’t too much in the way of smaller game, but every now and then
we would hear the alarm call of a baboon or a puku just reminding everyone that
he was around.
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| Something caught his attention for a while |
We spent about 40 minutes with him until he decided that
he’d had enough. A big yawn and he was
up and moving into the nearby bushes. He
lay just at the tree line, but we decided not to follow and try and get more
shots – they would be rubbish anyway and we figured we’d had the best of him
for the morning.
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| A bit of yawning before getting up |
Instead, the buffalo had still not moved and while the light
was good, we wanted to spend some time with them, especially if they were
chilled out. Often, we come across
buffalo that are too wary and end up moving away, but this herd was very
relaxed and we spent a nice time photographing them and their accompanying yellow-billed oxpeckers.
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| Watchful buffaloes |
While we were with the buffaloes, another car was heading towards us and it turned out to be the Kiboko guide that we had met the previous few times that we’d been to the park as we’d recognised the car that he drove used to be in Liwonde, the park we visit regularly. After exchanging greetings, he quickly told us about 2 male lions that were resting near the Twin Baobabs.
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| A buffalo with some oxpecker earrings |
He was very grateful when we were able to reciprocate and
tell him about the leopard nearby. Although we didn’t know if the leopard was
still there, we quickly turned around and led him to it and he soon found the
cat resting in the shade of a tree, but it wasn’t a great sighting as it was
surrounded by bush. Still, both him and
his guest were quite happy with the sighting, and we left them with the leopard
while we went to find the lions.
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| Our first lions of the trip |
The directions were simple – right at the road at the Twin
Baobabs, and soon enough we found the two lions resting in the shade of some
termite mounds. Although it was only
8.30 the light was getting quite harsh already, so the photographs weren’t
great, but then luckily one of the males – the more handsome one – moved to the
shade and we were able to get some nice close ups of him.
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| Starting to get sleepy |
We left the 2 lions sleeping in the shade and drove down a little by road to see if there was a place for water where they may drink. There was a small waterhole, but after hanging around there a bit it didn’t seem like the lions were inclined to move for a drink, so we made our way back to them.
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| Sitting pretty |
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| At the iconic Twin Baobabs |
We were back at Wamilombe in the afternoon, but not much was happening as it was pretty hot still. We’d had a tip from one of the campers that had gone on a guided game drive the morning that they’d seen a leopard cub near the gate.
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| Impala ram having a drink |
She had no idea where except that it was near the gate and turn left, so we decided that would be our target for the afternoon. We had an idea of the area that the young leopard could be but there was no sign of it for most of the drive.
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| Lizard buzzard |
It was pretty quiet the afternoon with the highlight being a band of banded mongoose at a waterhole and a lizard buzzard dropping from a tree to grab some prey, but just as we were thinking of heading out when suddenly we spotted a shape through the bushes – leopard!
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| Found the leopard! |
It was the young leopard we’d been told about, although a bit bigger than expected. And not only was he there, but he’d managed to catch something. It took us a while but eventually we figured out he had caught a banded mongoose – maybe even one of those that we’d seen earlier.
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| Could one of these banded mongooses be one that the leopard caught |
Unfortunately, he had situated himself nicely that there were plenty of branches between him and us, so the photos weren’t great, but we were just happy we’d managed to track him down.
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| Leopard with his prize |
He carried on eating his mongoose with little regard for us, and soon it was time for us to get to the gate before closing time, luckily only a few minutes away. A nice reward to end the day that we celebrated with another braai at our campsite in front of the Luangwa river.
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