Shenton Safaris - Photographic Newsletter

December 2006 issue

Welcome back to the South Luangwa as Shenton Safaris sees it. We're closed for the rainy season. The rains, due to start in mid to late November, haven't arrived in full force, but there has been enough rainfall to turn the valley luscious and green. A far cry from the spent dry of October and providing plenty of food for the Impala fawns dropped in November.

I'm feeling a little sheepish, the images in this newsletter are from July 2006, there are so many beautiful images of our stunning wildlife I figure, whilst they might be behind, at least they'll keep you enjoying during our rains.

This image of this lagoon below shows how green and wet the park still can still be at that time of year (early July).

Below is a series of shots of our young hyena cub (I do say "ours" loosely, he is absolutely a child of the wild)

Goldie's son in a particularly relaxed mood - we sat about 5 metres from his branch for half an hour or so before he stretched, came down the tree and went about his way for the hunt (which he also allowed us to follow).

Some Monkey Business with the baboons...

Various elephant encounters...

A stripe-bellied sand snake.

And of our feathered friends: Four Eastern Pink Backed Pelican flying in formation.

A Pels Fishing Owl - fishing.

Our leucistic Guinea Fowl - fondly known as Lucy. Being as conspicuous as she is it will be a miracle if she's still around next season - she's a virtual bull's eye for birds of prey.

Two Fish Eagles displaying

A Little Bee Eater with its butterfly kill.

A Goliath Heron and Grey Heron

Goliath Heron in flight.

Lilac Breasted Roller in flight

Crocs tend to be found in greatest concentrations around pods of hippos owing to the predominance of fish that feed on the hippos droppings.

"Loggy" the huge croc filmed by the BBC taking a buffalo in the Wild Africa Series (from our hippo hide).

Impala at sunset (above) and in the grove and leaping through the grasslands behind Mwamba (below).

A Zebra mother with her foal

Waterbuck with a herd of buffalo.

One very muddy buffalo masquerading as a waterbuck.

Male Kudu

The "Hollywood" pride matriarch

The youngest female of the Hollywood pride.

The "Hollywood" pride matriarch fighting in a tug of war with one of her sons (one of the older cubs that made several appearances in 2005's October newsletter). Approaching 2 years of age he is starting to challenge the females in the pride to test his strength. This "battle" lasted for thirty minutes and was accompanied by much growling. The matriarch won by sitting on his head for much of the last 10 minutes and refusing to let him up until he let go of the prized puku head.

The Mwamba pride all together below and hanging out behind Mwamba Bush Camp. We spent a couple of wonderful hours with these guys. The curious cubs surrounded the car and flopped down to frolick with one another within a couple of metres of our tyres. Having become extremely comfortable with our presence and when we finally decided to drag ourselves away we turned to find a line of 9 cubs following the car seemingly reluctant to let us go.