Shenton Safaris - Photographic Newsletter
July 2007 issue
Welcome back to the South Luangwa as Shenton Safaris sees it. It's the end of June and we've had a spectacular 6 weeks of game viewing to kick off the season.
Goldie's son (also fondly known as "Broken Tooth") has been as generous with his time as usual.
Many a morning we've walked to the main chitenge to find his paw prints (very large for a leopard) padding all the way along the track behind our chalets.
In fact the other morning at about 8am he walked straight past the office after having a drink at the river in front. Sadly I wasn't there and Al was so focussed on her work she didn't see him. It was only Derek, lying under a vehicle just next the office, who had the joy of watching him pad on by (eyes at paw level!).
Below are some images of Broken Tooth hanging out around the camps.
And now for some images of our feathered friends - the beautiful Carmine Bee Eaters, White Fronted Bee Eaters, the Eastern Pink-backed Pelican in flight and Vultures at sunset.
There are approximately 800 Thornifcroft Giraffe in the South Luangwa National Park, and I'm always amazed at how many of them seem to be in the areas around Kaingo and Mwamba Bush Camp. The stunning sunset shot was taken on the riverbank at Acaccia Loop.
Kill zones are always a messy and smelly affair - particularly by the time the hyneas and vultures get in on the action. Whilst in documentaries one tends to see big packs of hyena roaming and scavenging together it is not overly common for us to see big groups together. Typically we'll just see one, two or three loping around at night. This may have something to do with the huge numbers of lions (currently 48 in two prides) and leopard (10 different animals have been identified around Kaingo and Mwamba) in our area.
This buffalo carcass had been deserted by the Mwamba pride and left to the hyenas and vultures. We sat (with wild gardenia petals strategically placed inside nostrils, it really was stomach churningly vile!) for a couple of hours watching this fascinating interaction between 15 hyena and the hundreds of vultures who descended upon the bones.
I was pretty chuffed to get the below images of a Slender Mongoose and the pair of Banded Mongoose as these tiny beasts are very rarely standing still.
A year ago Derek opened up a low impact track to the Mwamba Sands Baobab Forest - a stunning area a couple of hours drive from Mwamba Bush Camp. This was the first time a vehicle had ever gone into this area. Previously only Derek and a few privileged guests had been able to walk to the Sands and camp out there.
This network of low impact vehicle tracks (which disappear each rains as per all our roads) give us a presence at Mwamba Sands which pushes the poachers further back. The roads themselves also act as firebreaks which stop the poacher's fires sweeping through vast areas and killing countless small game.
In the first image an Eland trotted through my view finder, in the second a couple of zebra paused briefly under a pair of Baobabs leaving me just enough time to release the shutter before they trotted off.
Two beautiful bushbuck - one full grown and a young male.
A cluster of crocs! The Luangwa has one of the highest concentrations of Nile Crocodiles in the world.
This young hippo got cranky when a croc got a little too close.
A few images from the hippo hide
This young hippo had obviously been misbehaving; when the scrutiny of four fully grown hippos became too much for him he flopped down on his rump and tried to pretend he was somewhere else.
I took this image (and the one in the email that came into your inbox of the hippo head to head with a grown lioness) sitting on the riverbank outside our house and shooting over the river. This hippo returned to the river to find the entire Nsefu pride camping on the beach. The cubs (below) were particularly curious about him and suitably wary!
The Mwamba pride doing their thing...
Until next time
Jules
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