The ‘Unluckiest Animal of the Month’ award for November must go to a warthog.
We spent hours one morning with the Holi pride of fourteen lions, wiling away a warm summer morning, watching them playing and bonding with quality family time. Suddenly, a male warthog blinking at the morning sun emerged from an aardvark hole not five metres from the pride. He quickly realised the fatal error and bolted. However, a subadult male cut him off and forced him back towards the welcoming jaws of the pride. He attempted to break through the wall of gold, but one lioness, with lazy swipe of her paw, caught him on the leg and sent him to the ground. The lions made short work of their surprise morning snack.
The buffalo specialists of Lagoon Camp
While this was a surprise, the Lagoon prides were also very calculating in their hunting. We tracked them to various kills and were fortunate to witness the same pride take on a big male buffalo. The buffalo retreated to a shallow channel (perhaps thinking that with his back to the water, he would have a better chance of seeing off the aggressors). At first, this strategy seemed to work until the lions overcame their fear of the water and followed him.
An incredible cacophony of bellows, growls and splashing ensued. Eventually, the old boy tired, and the pride managed to take him down. They were now faced with the daunting task of getting the almost one-ton animal out of the water. Eventually, this was achieved, and the effort didn’t appear to slow them down. We found the same lion pride on a wildebeest kill two days later!
As with much of the wild Northern areas of Botswana, November brought the rains and a bevy of new life. Young impalas, warthogs and many others were found almost everywhere. This is also boom time for the predators and we saw several leopards and cheetah taking advantage of this new food source.
Plenty of cheetah action
The average predator doesn’t know when the next meal is coming and aims to save as much energy as possible when hunting. The inexperienced newborn herbivores provide a more straightforward test than an experienced antelope herd accustomed to the alarm calls and signals that help keep them safe. The easier pickings also attract additional competition. We were treated to the fantastic sighting of two resident male cheetahs, the Two Brothers, facing down and then fighting off another male that had strayed into their territory. The lone male retreated and wasn’t seen again.
We also enjoyed frequent encounters with the two resident male leopards as well as a mother leopard with a cub strolling south of the appropriately named Leopard Road.
Delightful little antics
The Spotted hyena den near camp was still active, and we had the privilege of sharing time with a mother porcupine and her porcupette that scuttled about near camp. The youngster’s quills are already hardened (they start off as hair) and, as it is only a few weeks old, we hope to see mother and child together for a few months yet.
The elephant herds have been thrilling us daily as large numbers of them, alongside the immense buffalo herds, wander past camp to the Kwando River to drink.
Birding was spectacular, with an explosion of colours and feathers as the rollers, bee-eaters, whydahs, and various others competed under the towering clouds.
(Please note: For the safety of the animals, we do not disclose the location of either rhino or pangolin sightings. Accompanying pictures are from our Kwando Photo Library which consists of all your great photo submissions over the years, it may not be the most up to date, but we felt it was worthy of a feature alongside this month’s Sightings Report!)
