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| We were excited to get a view of the leopard’s face after waiting for a considerable period while Samson, our guide kept moving the vehicle for better shots. Upon careful inspection of this photo, you can see the pads of the feet of her kill in the tree near her head. |
“Sighting of the Day in Chobe National Park”
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| Cape Buffalo have a symbiotic relationship with cattle egrets who eat the ticks and other insects off their bodies preventing illness and infections. Cape buffalo are well aware of this benefit and do not object to their presence. |
With literally hundreds of photos from four safaris in Chobe National Park, two each on land and the river, we almost don’t know where to begin. Do we share our favorites first and wind down over a number of days to those of wildlife our readers have seen over and over again?
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| When our guide maneuvered the safari vehicle for our photos, it was tricky getting into a good position. There were nine of us in the vehicle and several other nearby vehicles with equal numbers of tourists, we were all jockeying for positions. |
Or, do we spill “the best of the best” first and dwindle down to those animals and scenes which may have become familiar to all of you over the years of our wildlife adventures throughout the world?
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| The leopard was well aware of our presence and kept turning her back to us. |
For expediency and perhaps a bit of laziness on my part, we’d decided to attempt to balance it out over this next week (or more, if necessary) with some of our favorites and others we look forward to posting which may not be as spectacular.
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| Of course, we would have preferred full-on face shots but it just wasn’t going to happen. |
Dealing with hundreds of photos to pick and choose is a monumental task in itself. Writing the text is easy comparatively. Editing the post with a less than ideal Wi-Fi signal is challenging as well. So bear with us.
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| From time to time, she’d allow us a glimpse of her profile. |
We’ll do our best to share our experience with all of you, our loyal reader, our new readers “getting their feet wet” in beginning to read our over 2200 posts and our occasional readers who may attempt to pick up where they left off or not.
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| But then, she’d put her head back down to nap after her tasty breakfast. |
A person asked me, “If you go on safari over and over again, seeing the same animals, don’t you get bored?”
I answered, “If you watch football over and over again, seeing the same players, do you get bored?”
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| There are many islands in the Chobe River during this dry season. The elephants swim back and forth from the land to the islands to partake of its rich vegetation. Elephants are excellent swimmers. |
Every time is different. At this point, we couldn’t count how many times we’ve been on a game drive, either driving ourselves or being driven in a safari vehicle. It doesn’t matter. The fact remains, we aren’t bored.
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| In no time at all, she made her way to the island in the deep water. |
No sooner than we climbed up into the safari vehicle or boat over these past days, the adrenaline rush flushed our minds and bodies with feel-good hormones as the sense of anticipation washed over us.
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| Once on the island, she joined the other members of her family. |
A few times over these past few days, I described it to Tom like fishing…the anticipation is 75% of the excitement. We get that same feeling when searching for wildlife scenes.
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| There is varying speculation on how many elephants there are in Chobe National Park. It ranges from 50,000 to 65,000. During our four safaris, we saw no less than a thousand elephants. |
For us, after many such experiences, the sighting of an impala or kudu may not be earth shattering but an impala attempting to mate or a kudu playfully dancing about is all new and elicits great feelings of pure joy and elation.
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| This was one of many crocs we spotted on the banks and in the water of the Chobe River. |
In essence, that’s what we’re searching for, the unusual and less often sightings but all the while thoroughly enjoying the parade of elephants on an island in the crocodile-infested river or a dazzle of galloping zebras on the savanna. It’s all quite exciting for us.
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| Tom’s fantastic dinner at the gourmet restaurant at Chobe Safari Lodge, located in a separate building we walked to in the dark with the sounds of wildlife around us. There are no fences around Chobe National Park as there are in Kruger National Park. One could easily encounter wildlife while out at night. |
Of course, if you aren’t interested in wildlife, one way or another, none of our recent or upcoming posts over these next seven months will hold must interest for you. Sorry about that. As our longtime readers know, our posts aren’t always about wildlife and nature. A year from now we’ll be at the end of our Baltic cruise…hardly a wildlife-rich experience.
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| This was the best-roasted leg of lamb in au jus that I’d ever had, moist, tender and delicious. |
For now, we’re chomping at the bit to share nature’s bounty over these past several days. And yes, once we’ve shared all we can, we’ll be back to posting our ongoing day to day adventures in Marloth Park.
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| We made new friends while on safari, including Jean-Pierre and Patricia a wonderful couple from Nice, France. |
No words can describe how excited we are to return tomorrow to see all of our friends, both human and animal and to settle back into our lovely holiday bush home, “Orange…More than Just a Colour.”
Yumm…life is good.
Photo from one year ago today, August 22, 2017:
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| Tom, walking toward the dental clinic in Costa Rica. It didn’t seem to be in a great neighborhood with bars on windows and doors but we felt comfortable. For more photos, please click here. |