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AfricIan

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What!!!! Only 30 minutes?????? ;)

 

Still good ........ That must be a brilliant find in Kafue, though? Although, following some random reports online I do see that they occur in the Busanga area.

 

Hari,

They are actually all over. Busanga area is probably the 'easiest' in terms of finding them, but I have even seen one in our car park across the river in the Park, and even here behind the lodge in the Game Management Area. Having said all that, If cheetah was the raison d'être of a safari then I would not push Kafue. They are still after all a quite rare and special sighting here.

 

Great leopard sighting and pictures @@AfricIan

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madaboutcheetah

Thanks for the Kafue cheetah 101 lesson - @@Caracal @@KaingU Lodge and @@AfricIan ........... When I get there to Kafue one day, I shall not be cheetah obsessed .........

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Today, we’re going to take a full day away from camp, heading further north onto the Busanga Plains. It was an early leave, too early for this hippo that hadn’t yet returned to the river. I’ve never noticed it before but is the “measles” on it’s face normal/common?


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And as we headed onto the Plains, another lone Roan, Grey Crowned Cranes, Wattled Cranes, a large Monitor Lizard, Saddle-billed Stork.


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Sometimes there was plenty of wildlife:


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Others were a long (long) way off


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Your’s truly, as Phil plans our next move


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We’d got word from the Zambian Carnivore Programme researchers that there had been a couple of lion kills overnight & the lions were probably holed-up on the “islands” (not at this time of year!) if we wanted to try to find them. Try we did and were eventually sort-of successful


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After a few futile attempts to get a better photographic angle, we think there were ~4 lions in there, we gave up & headed to “One-fig” for some lunch. Our lazy relaxation was cut short however when Phil noticed a bit of a stand-off in the distance


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Chairs & coolbox were quickly thrown back into the vehicle but the direct route to them was “a bit damp” so we had to take a circuitous route round to the “discussions”, which escalated as we got closer,


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soon they headed back to the water to continue fighting, posturing and poo spraying before another one decided to join in


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The ferocity of the fight was something else & we all gave an involuntary shudder as the crunches & crashes came thick & fast before one of they decided “that enough, I’m off” as he turned tail & “swam” away leaving the victor to return to the pod to a massive RRR-umph’ing from the rest of the pod – you could almost translate the cheering into “Yay dad, you showed him”, “My hero” etc! All in all they'd been "at it" for at least 45min, probably longer.


After that excitement, we continued our search of the” islands” & eventually found the second pride, though only one was in clear sight.


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Heading for home, this rather eerily reminded me of a derelict graveyard – and it went on for quite some distance


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Then we were very surprised to see a female Sable on her own out on the plains


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before coming across a heard of Roan


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and finally a very successful warthog family


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All in all, another great day


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Great day indeed. That hippo fight sequence with the lechwes watching is spectacular!

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@Africlan:

 

Much enjoying your TR which is bringing back fond memories. You've also got me off the hook by posting your excellent pix - I had a bit of a guilty conscience for not having posted my own - now assuaged.

 

I envy your excellent leopard sightings. There are plenty about, but we only managed to record them on camera traps.

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offshorebirder

@@AfricIan - amazing photo of the hippo leaping at the other one! Simply superb.

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Wow, what a fantastic hippo series with the mud and water spraying through the air!

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Thanks @@douglaswise . You kept to your promise of no pictures then. I’m itching to go and read your views of Musekese, we’re just over halfway through our trip now and I’m going to leave yours until I’m about done then see how we compare.


@@michael-ibk @@offshorebirder @@Marks Yes, It was almost surreal, watching (& hearing) the hippos “knocking seven bells” & taking chunks out of each other whilst at the same time the lechwe were taking no interest – seen it all before perhaps. It was certainly another first for us and I'm really please with how the photos have come out
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Over dinner the evening before, Phil had asked us what we would like to do today – even as far as, if we’d wanted to, returning to Musekese. As we were more than happy with our little camp and with what we’d seen & done up to then we opted to stay for the scheduled 4 nights so this morning we’re heading south, over to the Moshi area.


As usual we’re tracking the river and soon saw these young waterbuck


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And this Bee-eater having breakfast


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A Pel's Fishing Owl had been calling most nights but we'd not seen it until this morning. Phil had spotted it as we followed the river but despite his best efforts I'd not seen it until it got fed-up with constantly having to move downstream (or perhaps it had just reached the end of it's territory) and I just got a glimpse as a large brown/white bird flew back up-river.


Once over the Moshi bridge (which didn’t look that great but apparently the bus we saw at Treetops had crossed it quite happily!), more waterbuck


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I’m still trying to get the hang of photographing birds in flight so here’s a couple of a passing great egret


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The Moshi area is “a bit strange”. It’s heyday was back in the 50-70’s and still has many of the original stone direction signs – the sides out of the sun still being remarkably clear. The “main road” towards the old camp & airport has also got some much more recent road signs giving you the maximum speed (60kph) and warning of narrow bridges - these look very much like the result when a NGO has grant money to spend before the end of the year!! The remains of the old Moshi camp are still there and in much worse condition than the signs


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Pelicans, egrets & yellow-billed storks were mopping up the remaining fish in the ponds, the pelicans modus operandi seeming to move down the pool/stream en-mass, turn & do the same in the other direction.


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Whilst we were watching the pelicans we heard what sounded like an animal in distress so headed off to see if we could see what was going on but to no avail.


Back at camp, it was time to visit the “Wash & Go tree” (although Musekese do supply you with soaps & shampoo, even on the mobile) and lunch was waiting


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Then time to relax and study the other camp residents


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spotted bush snake


Our afternoon/evening drive got off to a slow start as the road was blocked


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It was then time for our trip test as we attempted (fairly successfully) to ID all the sculls in Treetops collection – they also have a super baobab


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Sunset started pink & just got better


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Another great spot by Phil, not backed up by my iffy photography – I’d forgotten to reset the camera after the sunset shots, doh!!


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Finally, a “before we left & after we got back” of the dinner table & camp fire


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Edited by AfricIan
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Dawn on our last morning on the mobile portion of our trip, today it’s back to the main Musekese camp.


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Before we set off, a short thought on the dreaded T word – Tetse aren’t a problem back at Musekese, Phil & Tyrone have put in very effective traps & we weren’t really bothered by them at all. Things are a bit different on the mobile though, despite elephant poo burning and liberal application of my favourite Ruaha deterrent Mossi-Guard both Vicky and I were well & truly got. The Mossi-Guard did appear keep them off the areas we lathered it on (hands, wrists, face, neck etc) but they simply bit us elsewhere, usually straight through our clothes - shoulders, backs, ankles (especially)! In camp & out on the Bursanga plains they didn’t bother us but in the woodland……. Fortunately neither of us suffered any reactions to the bites.


Anyway, to start us off on our ride back to base, a small Monitor Lizard soaks up the morning rays


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Although we’d often heard Hyena, these were the first we’d seen



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More bird-in-flight practice: If I remember correctly, a Snake Eagle


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We stopped for tea at the sulphur springs, still on the Lupufa river & Phil obliged with the “selfies”


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Sorry this has been such a short post, more from when we're back at Musekese soon

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Thanks @@ZaminOz this was the first time ever that I wished I’d got a video camera with us (or at least figured out how to use the video mode on my camera – too late to start thinking that then!!), not so much for the fight (though that was massively impressive) but to capture the noise and “cheering” as the victor cruised “back into port”.

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Back at Musekese now, we opted for the boat again that afternoon but hadn’t gone more than ~50m upstream before we found this leopard cub, enjoying the afternoon sunshine down on the riverbank on her own.


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There was a very stiff afternoon breeze blowing down the river, catching the roof on the boat so the anchor was only a mechanism for slowing down, not stopping our movement but it did mean we could head upstream of her, deploy the anchor & drift silently past, then head back out wide & motor upstream, drift past again etc., getting a little bit closer each time. She certainly didn’t seem bothered at all.


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Oh it’s them again,


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At one stage we thought we’d got a bit too close & she moved off


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but then moved into “stalk mode”. We wondered what she was looking at when suddenly there was a movement in the tree & a splash as a Monitor Lizard dived out of the branches & into the water


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Then she went to the waters edge for a drink


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and as the light went, she gave us this final glance before moving into the long grass when it was time for our sundowners.


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It wasn’t the worlds longest boat ride, I don’t think we cleared the frontage of the camp, but it wasn’t a bad “welcome back” to Musekese!


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~ @@AfricIan

 

Your Musewese leopard cub rolling in the grass image makes me smile.

What a nice sighting.

I really appreciate your posting these fine photos.

Tom K.

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No need to go far when a sighting of that quality is close to camp! A beautiful leopard.

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Thanks all, it's getting towards the end of our visit and today was our last full day at Musekese. The plan was to walk across the peninsula to “Eden”, another seasonally flooded dambo but one that tends to keep a little water in it year round and that Phil & Tyrone are planning to move Musekese to over this closed season as they think will give better “near camp” game viewing that the current site. Plentiful Puku, Kudu, and the odd Warthog & Bushbuck were seen, whilst over at the dambo these Puku didn’t seem overly impressed with the Crowned Cranes dance routine!


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Tom was in the game viewer a bit further south and as it was getting quite warm in the sun we opted for a lift home with him as he headed back to camp and this Racket-tailed Roller was very obliging


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Tom’s drive in the morning had come across Wild Dog tracks but no sight of the dogs and a couple of fresh’ish kills but no sign of the lions responsible, only vultures, so that afternoon we opted to drive back over and see if we could find them. Before we could set out though Tyrone heard a very soft lion call from towards the river so whilst one group took to the boat, we jumped in the game viewer & started searching the area just inland. Just like yesterday with the leopard, we’d not gone more than ~50m from camp when we were spotted


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One of the females had a very nasty looking puncture wound on her left shoulder – if you look closely you can see two distinct punctures and she’s also got a bad gash on her chest.


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One of the kills that Tom found in the morning was a hartebeest so the thinking was that it didn’t go easily. She seemed to be moving easily enough though (the raised LH paw wasn't a limp) so hopefully she’ll recover as this “pride” is only two females with one cub so they need all the breaks they can – the other female also looked a little red on the side of her face


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They were following the riverbank heading downstream but were only intermittently visible to the boat and although we tried to follow, our passage was then blocked by a gully we couldn’t cross so we left the tailing of them to the boat and reverted to what was left of “Plan A”, heading over to the “Eden” area where a couple of Zebra and an ele crossing in front of the setting sun ended our day.


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Edited by AfricIan
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Love the photo of the Racket-Tailed Roller! Never seen one. Ouch, that's a nasty looking wound.

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A bad wound indeed...still, seems they have remarkable recoveries sometimes.

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I do hope that lion recovers!

 

Stunning Roller.

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Thanks all.

Re. the lion wound,I e'mailed Phil & Tyrone as to whether they've seen her about since our visit & I'm waiting for word back from them. A blow-up shows how nasty it looks

 

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Doesn't look too bad to me. Pretty clean too, so either fresh or she can reach it with her tongue in which case it the healing shouldn't be a problem. And since she wasn't limping it's probably just skin and no muscles under the skin are damaged.

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That's encouraging @@egilio , thanks for your thoughts. Although the puncture wounds on the shoulder look bad, we were also concerned with what looks to be quite a nasty gash on her chest - unfortunately that's not to clear on the photo & the one I've posted above is the best I've got. When she was moving towards us you can't see it.

 

Anyway, our last morning :( . We were going to have to leave ~midday in order to get across Lusaka before it grinds to a halt in the afternoon/evening rush hour(s) and we opted to take the boat downstream, past the confluence & up the lower reaches of the Lupufa river, somewhere we’d not been before. Two new guests had arrived yesterday and said they would like to walk so it was arranged that they would also set off downstream, the thinking being we could pick them up if they started to flag.

A Giant Kingfisher, pretty Bushbuck, baby Hippo & a Goliath Heron posed for photos
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before Phil whispered Lion. Frantic scanning of the undergrowth& shadows ensued, looking for ears, tails or some other sign - Phil being unable to understand why I couldn’t see it until he finally got through to me that there was no point in looking too hard because he was sitting in plain sight on the bank!!
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He was a new one for Phil & clearly not comfortable with the boat, moving swiftly off the bank before we’d got very close at all - although his “hiding place” wasn’t that effective!
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Taking a slow ride back onto the Kafue, a pair of Pied Kingfisher
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before the radio burst into life as Tyrone requested a pickup. Unfortunately he was at one of the shallowest parts of the river so he is looking very pensive as he contemplates having to join Phil in the water pushing the boat over the shallows!
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Fortunately there was a relatively deeper channel close to the bank so Tyrone didn’t need to get his feet wet but we did need to hug the bank for a while meaning that we didn’t get much warning when we came across the Musekese Pride who promptly scarpered, save for this one cub who’s inquisitiveness was clear to see.
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Then it was back out into the mainstream, with Mukendra (?sp), our ZAWA ranger, enjoying the views
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A shower, pack and an early lunch for us –excellent, as had every meal been
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Then it was back to the main road & “straight” to Lusaka, JKIA and the long drag home.
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So…..
Early in the report, @@pault asked “was it a good time to go” –not only was it a great time to go but also an excellent park/camp to visit. After our long chat with Tyrone & Tony at the London travel show we came to Musekese with high expectations and they were exceeded on every count, the “main camp” has everything you need, the range of activities – walking, driving & the boat, options aplenty and we never even made it to the hide! The food is great and whilst the mobile camp is more basic, it’s definitely not “slumming it” in any way. Phil & Tyrone are wonderfully enthusiastic, greatly entertaining (though Tyrone’s wry & very “British” sense of humour did go a little over the heads of some other guests at times). Tom, although quieter, is still very knowledgeable & enthusiastic and more than holds his own with the other two. We had some great sightings – not one but FIVE leopard including three in tree(!!) and the mega hippo fight up on the Busanga Plain being the pick but there were oh so many more memories – it’s the first time an elephant has turned-the-tables and stalked us whilst we’ve been out on foot! It was also a real privilege to be able to spend so long, essentially on our own, at all the sightings. We didn’t see another vehicle at or around Musekese & even up in the Busanga area, we saw more Zambia Carnivore Programme vehicles than any others.
We enjoyed every minute and I hope you’ve enjoyed reliving it with me (& you don’t think the Panthera paradise title too OTT!).
It’s now time I caught up on all the other TR’s I’ve been dying to read, starting with @@douglaswise !
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Thoroughly enjoyed this report, thank you very much. Very pretty landscapes, and Kafues seems to have good animal diversity. You had lots of fantastic cat sightings, but I have to say I was most impressed with that hippo fight - and your photos of it, great job! When I get to Kafue in 2017 I hope it will be a trip as successful as yours!

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I've also enjoyed this very much. It's nice to see that the lions assembled for you one last time, however briefly!

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Thank you for reading & for your comments @@michael-ibk. I hope your 2017 trip is as enjoyable as ours was - is Musekese a possibility for you?

 

Thanks also @@Marks, Yes, it was very good of the Musekese Pride to come out to see us off!

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