As the seasonal cool dry weather continued elephants visited the camp watering hole in ever increasing numbers. Several big breeding herds turned up each day, as well as smaller groups of bachelors and solitary bulls. The bulls competed quite aggressively for dominance over the waterhole. One morning there was a big fight between two bulls which resulted in a calf falling in the water. The mother couldn’t see her youngster and was extremely upset until a different bull herded her towards the waterhole as though to show her where her baby was and she helped the calf out of the water. A fascinating interaction to watch.
The Nxai Pan pride of ten lions also showed up at the camp waterhole. There was one lioness who was heavily pregnant and the guides expected her to give birth towards the end of the month. We watched three lionesses with their six cubs hunting giraffe for well over an hour, but eventually they gave up trying to bring down the huge prey animals. Another time the pride had tried the camp waterhole but were driven away by elephants so they relocated to the Wildlife Department waterhole. Whilst they were resting some kudu came down to drink and the lions tried to stalk them, but the kudu spotted them and managed to bolt away just in time. A solitary lion roared his heart out all night near to camp, but didn’t manage to locate his pride. He was seen resting near camp the next day.
A female cheetah with three delightful cubs aged approximately seven weeks old was seen hunting.
Unusually, spotted hyena were seen a few times, including two who were drinking from the waterhole right in front of camp. They approached nervously due to the presence of the elephants, but eventually managed to sneak in for a drink before settling down to rest in a shady spot nearby.
Black-backed jackal were seen regularly, including a very bold individual who was trotting around near to the guests as they sat around the fireplace in the evenings and early mornings. One day we watched three black-backed jackal feeding on a big chunk of meat. A fourth jackal appeared but was promptly chased away as though he was an intruder in the territory.
General game included herds of giraffe, wildebeest, springbok and zebra. Good numbers of oryx and warthogs were seen on the way to Baines Baobabs.
We had a wonderful sighting of a martial eagle at the camp waterhole. After perching on a tree for a while, the bird swooped down to take a helmeted guineafowl, but was chased off his kill by black-backed jackal before he had a chance to fly off with it. Ostrich were seen regularly and the males were in full breeding plumage, showing red on the front of their legs and a bright red bill. Other species identified included larks, titbabblers, shrikes, flycatchers, prinias, warblers, penduline tits, batis, snake-eagles and korhaans.
(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!)
