Woodlife Trails

It was hard to believe that this was in fact Southern Africa. It wasn’t Longleat or Marwell Safari or Zoological Parks. What I was seeing were free-roaming animals in their native environment. A dream of mine since I was a kid.

Of course in some cases they weren’t going to be easy to spot, and in some cases they would be too far away. In one case I wouldn’t see any at all.

The first thing that struck me was the natural camouflage. Just take a look at the background behind this Plains zebra. Every animal had some method of blending into the environment.

The most common animal had to be the zebra. We saw two types; the plains zebra with it’s shadow stripes and the mountain zebra with no shadow stripes and a white underbelly.

As we traversed along the southern edge of the dried up Etosha pan, we came across more elephant and giraffe, particularly at the regular waterholes.

What makes this area so interesting is that in the dry season, the waterholes attract more of the animals making them easier to see. The waterholes (when not already dried up themselves) are also visited by a large variety of birds including these young flamingos and cattle egret and birds of prey like the tawny eagle.

The various species of antelope appeared quite accustomed to the presence of the vehicle. Springbok, Steenbok, Kudu and Gemsbok were amongst the most common species, but I did see a dik-dik and an eland - the world’s largest antelope.

A spotted hyena wandered nonchalantly in front of the Land Cruiser, while in the distance, a black-backed jackal was leading two of the hyena’s mates away from what might have been a den.

It wasn’t until we visited the floodlit waterhole of Halali that I saw the piece de resistance – an uncommon sighting of a leopard who had sneaked to the back of the waterhole under cover of dusk. I held my breath as I struggled to make out the spotted outline, crouched and eagerly lapping up the water.

The single light over the waterhole couldn’t improve the quality of the picture and I was left with this darkened image, which even so, shows distinctly that it is indeed a leopard (as if I wanted any more proof). I’ve fiddled about with the pic as much as I dare. You may have to enlarge the picture to see it.

Unfortunately, the other big cats remained elusive with a fleeting glimpse of a female lion and no sighting of a cheetah at all.

A Rhino wandered up to the waterhole on a couple of occasions for some light refreshment. This seemingly gentle giant captured my imagination and either another or the same animal and a mate endeared themsleves to me as they playfully locked horns face to face in the dusk and grunted some unknown language to each other.

Liazrds and other reptiles were another thing entirely. The Namibian rock agami provided entertainment as he picked flies off our heads…

..and a chameleon was picked up from the middle a dusty road…

This Rock hyrax seemed to enjoy my presence as we shared the early morning warmth of the sun near the top of a Kopje at Hobatere.

As suggested in my last post, I often had to choose between photographing a mammal or a bird and I’m afraid the mammals one hands down, but I managed to snap a couple of the feathered species including this red-beaked Francolin, the inevitable ostrich, an orange-beaked Hornbill, Glossy starling and re-eyed bul-bul.

Next Namibia post – The Bushmen.

Thanks for the visit.

Pablo.