As the dry season got under way elephants moved out of the thick woodlands inland and were drawn towards the river system. They came to browse in camp quite often, including breeding herds with small calves.
Lions also came to visit, one day moving through the staff village. A male and female lion were located feeding on a hippo on the route to Lebala camp. The guides suspected that the lioness had cubs nearby. A different lioness with her two sub-adult cubs were observed hunting warthogs, but unfortunately for them they didn’t make a kill.
A beautiful female leopard created the perfect photo opportunity as she draped herself across a branch. As this was during Botwana’s lockdown we felt sad that we were only able to share this magnificent sighting via social media and not with real guests, but it was a moment that lifted the spirits of the camp team as they pretended to be on safari again.
On one occasion, the resident pack of five wild dogs came to check out the camp workshop. In July we were lucky enough to come across them denning near to camp and six puppies emerged into view. Sadly, a week or two later the tracks indicated that the den had been raided by spotted hyenas and two of the puppies were missing.
Herds of sable antelope and roan antelopes could be seen near to Muddy Waters. Impala, waterbuck and kudu grazed on the banks opposite camp. Once our first post-lockdown guests arrived, we were able to venture further and found big herds of buffalo, zebra, wildebeest, giraffe and eland.
Crocodiles could be seen sunning themselves on the bank opposite camp and the hippos continued to congregate in the river that flows past the rooms. A 1 metre python was resting near the welcome spot.
A goliath heron could often be seen on the lagoon in front of camp. White-fronted and little bee-eaters were both resident. Other species making themselves at home included robin-chats, swamp boubous, starlings and green pigeons. Further from camp, we found wattled cranes and ground hornbills – both species are endangered so it is great to see them thriving in the Kwando Reserve.
(Note: Accompanying picture is 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!)
