Botswana - Okavango Delta - Machaba Camp

A Sighting for the Ages

It was a perfect morning for tracking animals.

The sky was overcast, and the previous night’s showers primed the ground for holding animal tracks. Not too long after we headed out on our morning safari, we found the tracks of five male lions.

We followed the fresh tracks with anticipation towards Mokoro Station. Suddenly, the tracks turned east to where we knew a female leopard had hidden her cubs. We feared the lions might have killed the cubs, but fortunately, the lions changed direction and stalked impalas southwards. Our guests loved the process of tracking the lions and how skillfully our guides identified the species of animals and where they were headed.

The revelry was quickly interrupted by a brawl coming out of a nearby thicket…

A young lion bolted out of the thicket chased by three adult males. The young lion could not outrun his pursuers. They all returned to the thickets, where the fighting continued for half an hour.

After some time, a lioness ran out of the same thicket, chased by the same male lions. She seemed to be the mother of the sub-adult from earlier and was not happy with the presence of these foreign males.

She was not at all friendly as they posed a danger to her cub, but the males did not want to harm her. The males wanted to mate. After some fierce snarling and displays of teeth, she later gave.

Eyes On The Prize

During an early morning game drive, we heard a strange sound coming from the north side of Machaba Camp. After some deliberation, our guide surmised that it must have been a kudu bucking a termite mound to scare something away. As we looked around, we saw two female kudus and a calf and decided to take a closer look.

With the help of binoculars, we also spotted a leopard flat on the ground behind a fallen tree. Then it all became clear - The kudus had initially seen the leopard but had lost track of it behind the tree.

This was the leopard’s chance. It started towards the three kudus making sure it was completely concealed. When the predator was close enough it pounced on the kudu calf, killing the young kudu instantly.

Sneak Attack

The conditions were far from ideal, but adventure often has the best outcomes under the harshest conditions. 

At Matlharelwa we encountered a pack of five African wild dogs feeding on an antelope carcass. Less than two minutes later, a lioness sprinted past them, stealing the remainder of their meal.

The wild dogs were shocked, barking and running around in confusion while the lioness jumped with her newly acquired meal into a nearby mopane tree. The dogs raged that their food was stolen as she calmly ate on the waterbuck in the safety of the tree.

Call Of The Wild

Towards the end of the month, we went on a beautiful afternoon game drive. The weather was cool, and the ground was still supple enough to hold animal tracks. We headed south looking for wildlife, then looped around, coming back up to Leopard Lagoon for sundowners.

We started hearing intense alarm calls from spurfowl and squirrels. To our guides, this meant that there might be a leopard nearby. We drove around the area, looking for the feline and startling some guineafowl as we came around a bend.

The leopard was casually walking on the road when it quickly caught one of the guineafowl running away from our vehicle.

That is it for January at Machaba Camp. We can't wait to see what next month has in store for us!

Until next time,
Linguist
Machaba Camp