Shinde dogs and Selinda cats

[Hads]

@@Bush dog i have just started Reading your report and what an amazing Trip you had and your photos are some of the best i have Seen on safaritalk, well done mate.

I Love your Pics of the woodland kingfisher in post 58, my favourite african bird.

[Bush dog]

@@Hads

 

Thank you so much for your kind words!

[Bush dog]

5th GAME DRIVE

 

We started the afternoon game drive with a visit to the leopards. The first son had taken its prey out of the burrow in order to devour it, at ease, in the shade of a wild sage bush.

 

 

The female and its second son were lying, at the edge of the wood, at the foot of a tree that had grown to the side of a termite mound.

 

 

The female decided to climb on the tree but, arrived at the end of a large branch, descended immediately

 

 

To return to lie next to its son.

 

 

The Explorer’s Camp’s guides called Mots to tell him that the Selinda pride was just in front of their camp. As it was quite far, we left immediately.

[Bush dog]

5th GAME DRIVE

 

Some encounters made on the way to Explorer’s Camp :

Considering the great spectacle offered to us by the cats, we did not have much time, during our stay, to focus our attention on the birds,. We only counted and identified sixty-five different species.

 

 

The two hippos, seen previously, together again in one of their favorite ponds, always as welcoming to those passing close to their tiny territory.

 

[Bush dog]

5th GAME DRIVE

 

All the lions, we had seen the previous days feeding on the buffalo, were there, except for one, a young male, and for a good reason, there was still some water on the bottom of the bed of the dry spillway.

 

 

All camp staff were gathered behind a fence between the lounge tent and the dining tent, taking pictures with their cell phones.

 

 

That’s were the lion(s) met the ax. The story and pictures were posted in a separate topic :

 

http://safaritalk.net/topic/17017-the-lions-and-the-ax/

 

[madaboutcheetah]

Brilliant report continues, @@Bush dog - can't believe how much those Leopard cubs have grown since i saw them in June!

[Bush dog]

@@madaboutcheetah

 

Thanks, Hari!

 

Wasn'it in January that you saw them or perhaps you saw them twice?

[madaboutcheetah]

Mike, yes twice ......

[Atravelynn]

Mother and son are a find! Beautiful. There's the axe again.

[Peter Connan]

And beautiful close-ups of the ground hornbill.

[Bush dog]

Thanks Lynn, thanks Peter.

 

6th GAME DRIVE

 

The next morning, the leopard family had not moved and was reunited. There was not much left of the impala and I guess the first son had completely eaten the young one. The female was lying on a large branch of a dead tree, a few meters from the ground, which allowed it to, optimally, scan the surroundings.

 

 

It then changed position to remain on the same branch, but in the opposite direction.

 

[Hads]

sensational photo's mike

[Bush dog]

Thanks @@Hads

 

6th GAME DRIVE

 

The two young ones were lazily stretched on the ground just below their mother.

 

 

Then, came an impala that attracted their attention but it spotted them quickly enough and they did not insist, one of the two barely moving.

 

 

Like I already said, there was not much left of the impala but it was still enough for a yellow-billed kite.

 

 

Also, came a black-backed jackal with obviously great ambitions, in this case, to move the leopards away from the remains of the impala. Its strategy was to harass them by turning around while launching regular and loud calls, at intervals of ten to fifteen seconds. Personally, I very much appreciate the cry of the jackal but after the twenty minutes that this little game lasted, I must admit that I had enough. As for the leopards, they remained totally indifferent to this racket.

 

 

At last, not quite, one the young leopard, eventually takes refuge in a tree.

 

 

The jackal left the place, just like we did, elsewhere.

 

[Soukous]

Lions are dangerous enough already @@Bush dog but a lion with an axe ??

Looks like you enjoyed a terrific safari. Thanks for sharing.

[Bush dog]

Thanks @@Soukous

 

6th GAME DRIVE

 

After we left the leopards, we went again in the Explorer’s Camp direction where we expected, one more time, to find the lions. We first came across two roans and the only hyena seen during those ten days in Botswana.

 

 

And then, it was a group of dagga boys, on which the lions had, I suppose, recently taken a few individuals.

 

 

Not far from the buffaloes, we found them, the two lionesses and three cubs, seen two days before. They were near a pond and they looked quite full, but there was no visible carcass around.

 

 

They had been joined by the young male who was absent when the pride had discovered the ax, the day before.

 

 

It even winked at me.

 

[Bush dog]

6th GAME DRIVE

 

While we were watching the lions, a squacco heron was stalking the fishes in the pond.

 

 

Not far, but not close enough to be spotted by the lions, fortunately for it, a rock monitor lizard.

 

 

The return to the camp took place under heavy rain. Despite our ponchos, we were fairly watered. While the weather seemed to brighten up again, I took some pictures from the balcony of my tent.

 

 

Though the wild dogs gave it sometimes a hard time, as it was said to me, the still alive hybrid.

 

[madaboutcheetah]

Oh wow - Mike, did you manage a close-up of that Waterbuck/Lechwe hybrid? Great find ...... We tried to find him in January last year, but, no luck.

[Bush dog]

@@madaboutcheetah

 

That was the only time I've seen it on this trip. It was not really a great find, it was just there, on the floodplains, in front of my tent with its friend, a male waterbuck, with which it has been often seen.

 

But I saw it a few times in March. Here is one of the pictures taken then.

 

[Bush dog]

7^th & LASTGAME DRIVE

 

One of the young leopards was still in the tree where it took refuge in the morning but no sign of the other two. Was it because of the baboons again? More lions, the two dominant males, had been spotted in the area of Explorer’s Camp. They had killed a buffalo calf. So, that’s where we went. There was an elephants’ traffic jam on the road along the spillway. So we had to turn back in order to get around them.

[deano]

@@Bush dog; I am stunned by the quality of your sightings and photography. You are clearly very skilled and I thank you for sharing these amazing images. The leopard on the tree conversions in particular are outstanding.

 

kind regards

 

deano.

[Bush dog]

@@deano

 

Thank you so much for your kind comments!

[dlo]

@@Bush dog; I am stunned by the quality of your sightings and photography. You are clearly very skilled and I thank you for sharing these amazing images. The leopard on the tree conversions in particular are outstanding.

 

kind regards

 

deano.

 

Agree so much with this. So many of those leopards are wall hangers if only any space was left.

[Bush dog]

@@dlo

 

Thanks!

 

 

 

And this is the case at home, there is unfortunately no place available.

[Bush dog]

7^th & LASTGAME DRIVE

 

Some close-ups of these elephants.

[madaboutcheetah]

Brilliant close-ups on that last segment, Mike - especially dramatic the dust-bathing one!