Moremi

Southern Carmine Bee-Eater - Moremi, Botswana

After a night in the lodge outside Maun we were feeling refreshed and ready to tackle the second half of our trip. The journey into the Moremi reserve is not that long, although the metalled road soon gives way to a track. Indeed the lodge we had been in offers day safaris into Moremi. So although this was to be a transfer day, in reality most of it was spent game driving.

Arriving at the gate we were warned that it was very wet in the reserve and that certain tracks were impassable, one of which was the track into the Khwai reserve that we were due to take a few days later. Undaunted we set off and although we did encounter some very large and deep puddles our initial impression was that the situation wasn't too bad.

The drive was fairly uneventful as far as animals were concerned, apart from a first ever sighting of a Lesser Spotted Eagle and the first Red Lechwe of the trip. We stopped for a leisurely lunch, then pressed on and very soon we were treated to the sight of a Lilac-breasted Roller posing beautifully on a termite mound. It's known as the most photographed bird in Africa and for good reason. I have hundreds of shots of them, but can never resist getting more.

It wasn't long after this that things took an unexpected turn and required a change of plan. The radio crackled into life and it was the two guys in the support vehicle calling to let us know that not only was our booked campsite inaccessible due to flooding, but they were stuck in the mud. Our guide hastily got out the satellite 'phone and started to make arrangements for an alternative site, but all three of us were somewhat annoyed that this information hadn't been given to us at the gate.

With an alternative site secured, we set off to the same location as the support vehicle to assist them jacking out of the mud. Time was getting tight and with the added distance to the new site, it was going to be a challenge to get the camp set up before darkness fell. Luckily, it wasn't long before another message came over the radio to say the guys had managed to get out and were on their way to the new site, so we resumed game driving.

Heading to the new site, we found ourselves on familiar territory from our trip two years ago, but it was barely recognizable due to the amount of water lying there. In fact we could see the gatehouse from which we left the reserve on that occasion only about 400m away, but we couldn’t get to it. We were entertained for quite a while by a couple of Yellow-billed Storks expertly fishing and also by a Monitor Lizard basking in the late afternoon sun on a termite mound.

By now it was time for sundowners and then a short drive to the camp, where the guys had made a great effort to get the camp set up and the dinner underway. It seemed we had disturbed a troop of Baboons that lived there and they were very vocal in their disapproval for an hour or two until they realized if we were staying, they would have to go. They moved on and all was quiet by bedtime.

Our first full day in Moremi dawned dry and overcast after another night of rain and thunder. We followed the normal pattern of 5am alarm call, breakfast and a departure between 6am and 6:15am. Little did we realize how quickly a significant sighting would be made and within 5 minutes we were parked and watching a male Leopard in a tree. We spent almost two hours and shot many frames before he finally came down the tree and moved away.

We headed off to see what else was on offer, but very soon it became apparent that there was even more standing water after the overnight rain. This fact was later born out when we spotted a crocodile actually swimming in the flooded wheel tracks. OK, it was a young one, but even so, it’s not a very common sight. The day was mainly one of spotting and photographing birds, including a couple more to add to our all time list. We called time during the late afternoon as a thunderstorm that we had watched building finally reached us and we headed back to camp early.

Our second full day in Moremi was much the same as our first, although the weather was drier and there was no early surprise Leopard sighting. A couple more new bird species, but perhaps the highlight was our first encounter with a Rock Monitor Lizard. To say he was uncooperative is the understatement, but an impressive animal nonetheless. We witnessed a rather serious disagreement in a Baboon troop as an alpha-male chased an interloper round and around a lake at speed until he had been seen off and found another tree.

We moved on and stopped a little while later for coffee, where we appeared to annoy a Hippo quite seriously. He kept his eye on us all of the time we were there, continually submerging and resurfacing just a little closer each time. The remainder of the day was again mainly bird photography, punctuated by Wildebeest, Impala, Giraffe, Red Lechwe, Kudu and Leopard sightings.

Probably the highlight was the Southern Carmine Bee-eaters. We had spotted them the day before, but this time it appeared we were disturbing potential food sources for them as we drove along. We were being accompanied by up to four birds flying alongside us and the image with this post is of one of the birds. It really was a beautiful sight.

We finished the day with another visit to the Yellow-billed Storks fishing, sundowners and then back to camp for dinner. What greeted us when we got there was one of the best sunsets we were to witness during the whole trip.

All that remained in Moremi was the following day’s game drive to the gate and then the transfer into Khwai. The rain was back to haunt us at breakfast, but thankfully stopped before we left. Three memorable sightings were in store for us between the camp and the gate, which strangely happened at the same location. We were watching a large group of Red Lechwe, the most we had seen all trip, as overhead was flying a majestic African Marsh Harrier. As we were concentrating on these, there was a commotion behind and to our right hand side and what was probably the largest pod of Hippos we have ever seen were running down a track to a new flooded area. Magical to watch.

Next time I’ll conclude with a summary of our two full days in Khwai.

Nxai Pan

Alert Giraffe Family - Nxai Pan, Botswana

The transfer to Nxai Pan was long and tiring, not to mention very wet at times. Shortly after we left the Central Kalahari gate the track was completely flooded and looked more like a river. At times it was impossible to decide where the shallowest track was, but we got through without mishap.

Arriving at the Nxai Pan gate, we were greeted by another track masquerading as a river and informed that we could only be admitted at our own risk. This was a no-brainer as our camp was already set up in there and there was no alternative. As it was getting fairly late, we did a short game drive and repaired to camp for dinner and bed.

Next morning all was well and we set off to see what Nxai Pan had to offer. It was to turn out to be a day mainly consisting of bird sightings, apart from the Zebras, which was the reason we were there anyway. They were even more plentiful than the Oryx had been in Central Kalahari and our guide estimated we saw between three and five thousand in Nxai Pan. However, the vast amount of rain and the affect it had on the vegetation meant the Zebras didn’t need to migrate so far as in most years. Had it been a normal year he estimated we would have seen three to four times that number.

My first impression of Nxai Pan was how big and open the area is, although only a fraction of the area covered by Central Kalahari. It is classic Cheetah territory and that was what I was hoping to see. I didn’t have to wait long on our second day and we found a female with two young cubs, probably about nine months old. We spent best part of an hour with them as they slowly moved around their range and the cubs played happily with each other, before they moved into cover and we left them.

Next up was another herd (dazzle) of Zebras, and another brief Cheetah sighting, but much of the day was spent looking for Lions. After lunch, we were successful, even witnessing a (distant) mating session. There was a torrential thunderstorm later on in the afternoon, but once this moved through we had another Cheetah sighting, which turned out to be the brother of the female we had seen in the morning.

That brought us to the end of our two full days in Nxai Pan and just left us with a game drive to the gate next morning. We had been trying, unsuccessfully, to photograph a European Bee-eater since we arrived, but every time our guide killed the engine, the bird would fly. Finally we were successful as we found one in an Acacia bush and it didn’t move. Also added a Bradfield’s Hornbill to our list as it posed beautifully beside the track. All too soon we were at the gate and transferring back to Maun for our mid-trip overnight stay in Thamalakane River Lodge.

My overall impression of Nxai Pan is somewhat mixed. Certainly we saw exactly what we went there for, so we have no complaints on that score. But there are vast areas of the reserve that are inaccessible due to the no off-roading policy. I understand the reasons for this policy and agree with it, but it only works if there are adequate roads to use and that is where Nxai Pan suffers.

Central Kalahari

A well fed Cheetah - Central Kalahari, Botswana

Maun is known as the ‘tourism capital’ of Botswana and is where we based our trip with overnight stays at the beginning and end as well as one night in the middle on the transfer from Nxai Pan to Moremi.

The journey to the Central Kalahari is quite long with around 45 miles on metaled roads followed by a similar distance on a dead straight, sandy track. Once at the Northern gate, the remainder of the journey is a game drive to wherever the camp has been pitched. We were located mainly in an area known as Deception Valley and recent sightings there had been very encouraging. The Central Kalahari Game Reserve is huge at around 53,000 square kilometres, so we were only going to experience a small fraction of it

Our previous safaris had all taken place in what I would describe as typical bush, even when we were in the Okavango Delta. But the wide-open plains of the Kalahari were a welcome change and immediately we could see our hoped-for sightings were a distinct possibility. The game drive section gave us a number of excellent bird sightings, but as we got into the Deception Valley area there were Springbok, Black-backed Jackal and three male Lions that we were to get to know quite well in our 4 night stay.

After a 5am call on our first day, we started our game drive shortly after 6am and the pattern for the trip became clear. The early start was the norm, but despite returning to camp for lunch on most days, we were game driving for around 10 – 12 hours each day.

This opening day was to turn out as mainly a bird sighting day and what was immediately noticeable was the number of Pale Chanting Goshawks about. Another fascinating discovery was that the juveniles are very confiding, but the adults will fly before the vehicle has even come to a halt. Aside from the birds we had some delightful encounters with Ground Squirrels doing their Meerkat impersonations, young male Springbok play-fighting and huge herds of Oryx (Gemsbok) the like of which we’d never seen before. The day ended when we encountered three Bat-eared Foxes in the middle of the track, but in fading light. We managed a couple of record shots, but that was the best we got all trip. The length of the grass due to all the rain gave them plenty of cover and they are very nervous anyway, so mainly all we could see were ears.

Day Two was to yield Hartebeest, a charming Scrub Hare and the one thing I wanted to see, Cheetahs. Not only did I see Cheetahs, I finally got to witness a Cheetah successfully hunting and see for myself the stunning acceleration these cats can generate. This probably was the highlight of the trip for me, but there were other encounters that came exceptionally close. We also witnessed the amusing sight of a Clapper Lark. These birds take off vertically with a sound not dissimilar to the drumming of a Snipe, but then issue a whistle as they dive back to the ground.

Our final full day in the reserve was by far the best and gave us memorable sightings of the three male lions. They are three brothers aged around 30 months and have yet to grow manes. They were a joy to be with as they play fought with each other in the early morning, but our evening encounter with them was more memorable. The sight of all three trying to climb a tree in failing light was one to behold and needed an ISO setting of 12,800 just to get 1/60th second shutter speed.

Before that we had seen the same Cheetah with her two cubs as the previous evening and this time had made two further kills. One was left for the Jackals, to distract them from the main kill, which was being gradually eaten by the cubs. The nearby trees began to fill with Vultures, while they waited for their turn to come in and clear up the remains.

Moving back to pick up the Lions again we found a tower of 30 Giraffe in an open area, all very relaxed and a couple of the younger males practicing their sparring on each other. Approaching this location we were very fortunate to spot an African Wild Cat in the undergrowth. In truth, they look like a longer-legged version of a domestic tabby we are used to, but seeing such a secretive animal was a bonus.

Overnight there was a lot of rain and our departure to Nxai Pan was in the wet. Understandably our game drive to the gate wasn’t very productive, apart from a very wet and bedraggled Spotted Eagle Owl we found on the track. Whether she was ill, injured or too wet to fly we couldn’t tell, but she gave us some wonderful close-up shots.

Next time I’ll cover the three nights we spent in Nxai Pan and the challenges we faced there.

Botswana 2017

Kori Bustard - the national bird of Botswana

A question I’m often asked is, “what do you do with your pictures?” The answer is always the same along the lines of listing the various social media platforms, Flickr and of course, this website. Inevitably, if a fellow photographer poses this question, the conversation develops from there and enables me to ask what I find a more fascinating question: “How do you display your images?”

Often this leads to a discussion about how the process of posting to multiple platforms can be streamlined. That is not what I’m actually asking, but it does yield some interesting ideas and sometimes kicks off experimentation. It’s a good learning process even though in time, I often find myself reverting to my original methods.

But what I am driving at with that question is how do others deal with a batch of shots from a particular shoot. Let me try to explain.

If I go out to a location for any length of time, be it a day, a week, or a fortnight, I will download and back up the images immediately on return and then take my time to deal with them. This was originally born out of necessity through time constraints, but is less of an issue now. However, it does allow me to overcome the excitement of the moment and look at the images with a more considered eye.

It does go further than that though. When a particular species of bird or a rarity arrives locally, a cascade of images of it suddenly hit the internet to the extent that one can get bored with seeing ‘another Bearded Tit’ image for example. My preference is to hold back my images until the flurry has died down and then post it so that it doesn’t get lost in the crowd.

There is a down side to this though. I currently have lot of images of Red Squirrels in the snow, but if I hold back on posting these, I’ll have to wait until next Winter to post them. It just doesn’t look right if I were to post them up in July.

The alternative is to deal with each shoot immediately on completion and while that may work for some trips – an African safari perhaps – it just means the images get mixed up with all of the others being posted. I’m not at all convinced I can be that disciplined either, nor am I certain I want to be.

As with most things in photography, it’s a subjective view and what works for one, doesn’t for someone else. For now, I’ll stick with my process but remain open to reasoned persuasion.