The rains that occurred early to mid last month, have all but finished. The first spurts of lush grass have been grazed up, and only fairly short grass remains. The zebras, on a couple of occasions, looked as though it was time for them to head off to try greener areas – if there are indeed any to be had this year…
The breeding herds of elephants are around, siphoning the water as fast as they can. Every person looks to the sky, as the strange weather brings with it high temperatures and hazy days, more reminiscent of October. Clouds repeatedly fail to build up and produce any rain: this does not bode well for the future health of the animals. Although there will always be water for them to drink at the artificial waterholes, if the new growth of grass does not last, the grazers in particular will suffer from the scarcity of food in the coming months. The camp waterhole is in constant use, with zebras, cheetahs, lions, jackals, and more zebras, trying to get to the water before the elephants bully their way in. Even amongst elephants, it is a meeting ground with everyone jostling for position.
Rumours of drought carry across the whole of Botswana, as rainfalls have failed to reach normal levels. After such abundant rain last year, this season comes as something of a shock. We still have a couple of months left of the so called ‘rainy season’ – so there is still hope.
It’s a wide open expanse, with no vegetation – just around the edges. As the sun beats down, temperatures on the surface rise quickly. The odd prey strays across, and is snapped up quickly by the resident predators. As stark as it seems, this territory must be defended against outside intruders who seek to usurp – or just share the domain. When you are a 10cm long skink, with the lounge deck as your world, you can still be as fierce as a lion: any skink that dared to touch the edge of the deck, was swiftly attacked, resulting in two skinks leaping high into the air, lashing tails and kicking with feet. Somersaulting, any intruders were thrown off the deck, and the resident skink returned calmly to his domain.
The big pride of lions killed a zebra not far from the camp waterhole, and although the kill itself was not accessible, we had the benefit of seeing the lions come in and out of the bush, towards the waterhole to drink. A few days later, all 15 of them were found on Middle Road trying to stalk zebra. There was not much hope of them catching anything, as the area is so open, the herds can see them a long way off. Even on the days where they couldn’t be found, they were often heard calling during the night, with the sounds echoing across the open plains.
The cheetah and her two cubs were seen every few days, hunting some of the smaller game that is filling the plains, such as springbok.
Excited guests were able to see a boomslang at the entrance of the main area. This snake, although venomous, is exceptionally shy, and not often seen. It was only found when someone heard all the birds twittering and alarm calling. It moved off quickly, to escape the harassing birds.
Another rare sighting for Nxai Pan this month – a male leopard. Very shy, he was resting on the road to the airstrip when he heard the approach of the car. He quickly moved off into the thick bush next to the road. And wild dogs, yet again! – this time chasing springbok across the middle of the pan.
