Cheetahs

Cheetahs - my favourite animal.  Sleek, gorgeous, fast.  What a marvel.

We've had three opportunities to experience cheetahs at Na'ankuse.  On the carnivore feeding tour, we saw two cheetahs through a fence as food was thrown over to them.  (they may be behind a fence, but these animals have huge territory to range over.  It's not like a zoo.)

More exciting was this morning's Walk with a Cheetah.  Kiki is one of three cheetahs who has been hand-raised at Na'ankuse.  Farmers will often trap very young cheetah babies, and put them in a hole to attract the mother cheetah who has been attacking their livestock.  The mother comes to the hole for her young, and is captured and the farmer gets rid of it one way or another.  This time, the mother never came back and the farmer called Marlisse to take the days-old cubs.  They were consequently hand-raised off a bottle and are totally tame.

Kiki arrived in a truck to meet us out in the midde of the veldt.  There were the three of us and a four seniors from Wisconsin just finishing their education degree with a Study Abroad in Namibia.  After a bit of petting and stroking near the truck, Kiki got a bit of food to lead her out onto the veldt.  We walked quite a distance with her as she got bits of food along the way.  She spotted some hartebeest and got distracted to go after them, but mostly we just walked together through the brush and thornbushes.  Solomon told of one time Kiki took off after a baby springbok.  Worried about the demise of the poor springbok, Solomon ran to follow her, in hopes of rescuing the yougn springbok if Kiki attacked.  When the springbok fell, he thought it was finished.  However, when he caught up, Kiki was waiting by the springbok until it got up and started moving again.  These animals have the instinct to hunt, but not the killer instinct and certainly not the skill.

Well, the walk was thrilling, but of course there were 7 people taking turns getting close and patting Kiki.  This afternoon we saw Cheetahs Up Close.  Just the three of us, and three cheetahs, and Johannes the guide.  Unbelievable!

Johannes brought chicken parts along and fed the cats alternately.  He was good at advising how to get pictures with the right angle to the sun and so on.  Kiki, our female friend from the morning, Aisha, another female, and Aiku, the large male, were incredibly tame and approachable.  We spent about an hour with them.  They LOVE being tickled under their chins, just like a house cat.  And they purred constantly, with a deep-throated purr.  All three of us got to pet and tickle.  Jamie fed them some of their food: boy did they stick closely to her after that!  They kept licking her hand even after the food was gone.  They even licked my hand hopefully although I had never had food.   This was truly an amazing experience.  

I have so many pictures from that hour visit, and Wayne has so many videos, I'm torn about how to illustrate this post.  One of the big thrills for me, of course, was watching the intense excitement on my granddaughter Jamie's face.  Her emotion was palpable.

Here she is petting Aiku.

And here the cheetah is licking her hand for the food.

Caracals

We were astonished on our carnivore feeding tour to be escorted into the enclosure where the caracals were.  These had been hand-raised and so were perfectly safe.  They were so soft to the touch, we couldn't get enough of them!

Lions at Na'ankuse

We were standing a meter or so from an electrified fence behind which were three lions.  All of a sudden there was an enormous roar and we all jumped back terrified.  Well, yes, they were behind that fence, but they were awfully close. It was Clarence the male who had emitted such an enormous roar.  

The three lions were related, and left orphaned when young cubs.  They live in a wide open area within that fence, and are fed each day by Na'ankuse staff.  So they know to appear at that spot in the fence every day.  They were the first visit of our Carnivore Feeding Tour here at Na'ankuse, and already the shadows were very long, because the tour had been delayed to accommodate some guests arriving late.  They never appeared, so the lighting was dim, but we did get a tour to ourselves - AND, we're going to get a whole make-up tour tomorrow.

One of the females was in heat and we saw the male mate twice with her.  He's had a vasectomy because Na'ankuse has no license to breed lions, but he hasn't lost the desire.

After a brief few seconds, the female hisses, swats, and drives away the male.

Wild Dogs in Africa

If you're a wild dog and you want to have a pup, you better be the alpha female.  That's the only dog in the pack allowed to have a litter, which will number 15-23.  Any other pups will be killed by the pack.  After the litter is born, the whole pack will swallow food, and then return to the pups and regurgitate it. They are very co-operative animals.

Farmers don't like wild dogs, because they create havoc with their livestock.  One farmer found a litter of wild dogs, and touched the dogs.  After that, the mother will not return to look after them.  A call to Marlisse earned them a home at Na'ankuse.

On our Carnivore feeding tour, we saw them tear apart parts of an Oryx and wildebeest.  We were looking down on them from a viewing platform.  They were like - well - wild dogs!

A Little Bit of Germany in Africa

 If you walked into this breakfast room at your hotel, where would you guess you were?  Germany or maybe Austria, right?  Wrong.  Windhoek, capital of Namibia, which was a colony of Germany until after WW II.  

The whole town has quite a German flavour, mixed with African.  In the middle of Klein Windhoek, you can stand on the corner of Koch Strasse and Nelson Mandela Avenue.  The Germans really didn't treat the Namibians well during colonial times, executing one of the earliest and most vicious genocides of the Herero tribe.  Yet German street names remain.  Very surprising to someone who saw familiar English street names in Montreal get overwritten by French!

African Houses

We walked into a magnificent holiday house at Na'ankuse due to some vagaries of bookings.  Huge four bedrooms, 3 1/2 bath, swimming pool, out at the end of about 5 Kim's of rough road from the lodge.  Gorgeous vista out across the veldt.

Here's the house.

You can see how isolated it is from this picture.  Notice the chimney shaped like a bird.

Here's the room where Wayne and I were.

Here's the dining room.

Beautifully decorated but missing some things we would take for granted back in Canada, like heating and air conditioning and double glazed windows.  Basically you have to be ready to take the weather as it comes, and cope.  It was CHILLY in the morning and late in the evening.

Best of all was our ability to see wildlife right from our yard.  When we returned this morning, there was a duiker visiting in the yard.  Apparently, it had spent a lot of time at the Na'ankuse farm, but had drifted over to our place.  It was not at all skittish, as you can see.

Big Day Number Two

Our guide Water suddenly leaned forward, alert and listening intently.  "Can you hear it?  Shush and you'll hear the roar of a lion in the distance."  We had been peacefully watching a small herd of Red Lechwe, the first time we'd seen them up close, but all of a sudden our adrenalin was pumping.  Water started off quickly in the direction where he'd heard the roar.  We were driving quickly and in our path we saw a pond of fairly deep water.  But Water simply said "Get everything off the floor", and took off through the water.  The front foot well was awash and the water was midway up the doors.  Sure enough, Wayne had to lift his feet to the dashboard to avoid getting soaked.  The Land Rover we were in had a totally watertight engine casing and a 'snorkel' to feed air into the engine.  Here's a picture of the vehicle behind us plowing through.

OK, enough about cars and getting there.  Let's get on to the exciting stuff.  Water had judged things well when he took off in the direction of the roar, because in about 10 minutes we came upon a lioness.  Since she was in a fairly open space, we had a good view of her and watched her for about 15 minutes.

But Water was getting even more exciting news on the radio, about three new male lions who had entered that area of Okavango.  Before the arrival of these three, the area had seven lions: a pride consisting of one male, two females, and two cubs, plus one lone female with a male cub, 'boy' as Water called him.  Now the balance would be upset as these three brothers would want to kill the male cubs and take over the pride.

So we raced toward the position described on the radio, slamming through a couple more water pools. As we got closer, even we could hear the roars of these new lions.  Finally, we arrived in position to see the lone female and her cub scuttling along in front of us seeking refuge in the long grass to hide from these interlopers.  She looked very worried and kept glancing behind her; Water said she had good reason to be nervous, because her 'boy' was vey vulnerable.  She slipped by too fast to get a picture.

Then we saw the three male lions emerge from the underbrush, walking in single file, heads aloft and looking quite majestic.  

By this time the number of vehicles was up to eight, and Water did a great job of getting us a good position, and then judging the right moment to race ahead and leapfrog the other vehicles and get ahead of the lions.  We saw them peeing to mark the territory, and sniffing where the female had peed, clearly in a mood to hunt the young male and kill it.  We continued to watch, chase, and watch again for over an hour.  The animals were magnificent to watch, and awesome when they roared their announcement that they'd arrived.  Those roars, so near by really soaked right into your bones.

We sat mesmerized for over an hour, getting many wonderful pictures of this impressive trio.  These are a few of my favourites:

These guides are amazing in getting in position in front of the animals to watch them approaching, and co-operating to not disturb other people watching, and, most importantly, to not interfere with what the animals are trying to do.  In one case in Elephant Plains, we actually backed off and left in order to not interfere with their hunt.

Our guide Water was pretty excited too, albeit a bit worried about the effect on 'their' lions.  He and I celebrated as we arrived back at the camp.

Alas, all good things must end, and we had to return to the lodge.  But we'd once again had the luckiest day in Xakanaxa for a long time, seeing these magnificent beasts on their first day of arrival.

Afternoon Game Drive in Xakanaxa

 In our afternoon game drive, our guide Water took us to a large pond of water with all kinds of birds.  There were yellow-billed and saddle-billed stork, marabou stocks, greater egrets, wattles crane (with wings folded back to look like a long tail) and pelicans.  

We also saw a croc with its mouth open, to cool off.

There was a brief pas de deux as a crocodile swam into shallow water, approaching a group of storks.  They didn't look very worried, as the croc already had a fish in its mouth.  One bird in its direct path took a small step backwards, but other than that, the birds totally ignored the croc.  

When we arrived, there were just two pelicans among the other birds.  

Then more pelicans started flying in from another pond.  They came and they came and they came.  They flew in single file and did a sharp U-turn to land.  As they turned their white wings glinted in the sun against the beautiful blue sky.     

 Spectacularly beautiful.  Soon there were so many, we couldn't figure out how they could fit on the shore.  

We met some people at dinner who had watched from the departure pond, who said that even after such a flock had flown to our pool, there were many left at theirs.

Jamie got a good picture of a Marabou stork

And of a hammertoe

 And of a Grey Go-Away Bird

Since we're on the topic of birds, I'll include two other birds that we loved.  I got a close-up of a starling, a bird whose green iridescence I love.  And those orange eyes are startling.

Jamie had earlier got a great picture of an African roller

OK, let me fly away for now . . .

Morning Game Drive in Xakanaxa with Zebra

With adrenalin still pumping after our awesome day before, we set out in our Land Rover the next day with high hopes of more cats.  We had spent time in Toronto 'managing expectations' but it was hard to keep those expectations under control after our incredible luck. It turns out the 26 was a 'relatively' uneventful day.

There were some highlights, though.

We saw a small herd of tsessebe, a type of antelope we'd never heard of before.  It's the second fastest animal on earth, after cheetahs, we were told  

We also saw a lovely herd of kudu - this time nicely in the open.  Before this, we had really believed one guide who said there were two sides to every tree: the side facing you and the side the kudus were on!  

Here are some young ones.

Other animals included wildebeest and bushbuck. We also saw many impala.  They are such a beautiful animal, but often get treated nonchalantly because they're so ubiquitous.  We saw one poor impala up in a tree!  Dragged there by a leopard whod killed it.  We stopped by the tree on the way in both in the morning and the afternoon but the leopard was never there.  

We saw an absolutely gigantic herd of Cape buffalo, numbering maybe 500.  Our guide Water said there had been no buffalo at all until this herd.  There were baboon and elephants, hippos and crocodiles, wildebeest, waterbuck and bushbuck.

For me the highlight was coming upon a small herd of zebra.  They just might be my favourite animal of all.  They were beautiful, their shiny coats glistening in the sun.

They are beautiful animals.

As I reflect on this message, it seems that only someone spoiled by a Big Day such as we had the day before could have considered this 'uneventful'.

An Uneventful(?) Day at Xakanaxa

With adrenalin still pumping after our awesome day before, we set out in our Land Rover the next day with high hopes of more cats.  We had spent time in Toronto 'managing expectations' but it was hard to keep those expectations under control after our incredible luck. It turns out the 26 was a 'relatively' uneventful day.

There were some highlights, though.

We saw a small herd of tsessebe, a type of antelope we'd never heard of before.  It's the second fastest animal on earth, after cheetahs.  We also saw a lovely herd of kudu - this time nicely in the open.  Before this, we had really believed one guide who said there were two sides to every tree: the side facing you and the side the kudus were on!  

Other animals included wildebeest and bushbuck. We also saw many impala.  They are such a beautiful animal, but often get treated nonchalantly because they're so ubiquitous.  We saw one poor impala up in a tree!  Dragged there by a leopard whod killed it.  We stopped by the tree on the way in both in the morning and the afternoon but the leopard was never there.  

We saw an absolutely gigantic herd of Cape buffalo, numbering maybe 500.  Our guide Water said there had been no buffalo at all until this herd.  There were baboon and elephants, hippos and crocodiles, wildebeest, waterbuck and bushbuck.

 

For me the highlight was coming upon a small herd of zebra.  They just might be my favourite animal of all.  They were beautiful, their shiny coats glistening in the sun.

Then we came upon a large pond of water with all kinds of birds.  There were yellow-billed and saddle-billed stork, marabou stocks, greater egrets, watted crane (with wings folded back to look like a long tail) and pelicans.  There was a brief pas de deux as a crocodile swam into shallow water, approaching a group of storks.  They didn't look very worried, as the croc already had a fish in its mouth.  One bird in its direct path took a small step backwards, but other than that, the birds totally ignored the croc.  

When we arrived, there were just two pelicans among the other birds.  Then they started flying in from another pond.  They came and they came and they came.  They flew in single file and did a sharp U-turn to land.  As they turned their white wings glinted in the sun against the beautiful blue sky.      Spectacularly beautiful.  Soon there were so many, we couldn't figure out how they could fit on the shore.  

As I look back on this message, I realize just how eventful this day had been.  Later in the airport, I heard a woman talking about their two days and all the things they hadn't seen.  It read like the list above.  

Camp Xakanaxa

With dust in our hair, dirt in our mouths, and showers the only things on our mind, we finally arrived at Camp Xakanaxa after our 5-hour drive from Maun on dusty roads in an open jeep! We were shown to Tent #9, a lovely big tent on wooden floors, with a deck out front looking out over a small channel of water and the marsh.

  Our bathroom was attached at the back and had a large opening to the sky and a wonderful big rainfall shower - VERY welcome.  We were warned to remove our toiletries from the bathroom and latch the door for protection from monkeys.  As Jamie took that welcome shower, there were some monkeys watching over her from a tree.  The monkeys had vacated by the time Wayne and I took our showers.

We then watched the beautiful sunset from our front deck.

We were also warned to get a guide to walk us to dinner after dark or for any walking off the deck.  Why?  Because hippos often wandered close.  And hippos really  don't like people getting between them and the water. In fact, the next night, when Jamie stepped outside the tent onto the deck to call the guide, she heard a rustling and shone her flashlight.  Jamie must have scared the heck out of him, because he scuttled off into the reeds at water's edge.  Jamie was a bit disconcerted, but he seemed more upset than Jamie!

Drinks were served in the bar under a thatched roof, from the open bar and fridge.  The bar area was full of Aussies on a tour from McKay (north from Brisbane).  Led by a loud and enthusiastic gentleman named John, we were quickly welcomed into their group.  From there, we all headed in to a communal dinner served at a long heavy wooden table.  We ended up sitting with a lovely couple from Kansas.  Jerry was an entymologist who had been on a volunteer tour in Kenya, then was joined by his wife for safari travel.  Great people to talk to.

We walked back to our tent under a sky full of stars and went to bed by candlelight.  (The camp only has power until 7:30 in the evening).  Lights (such as they were ) out by shortly after 9.

A great day.

by Lib, with contributions from Jamie Gibson

Cats, Cats and More Cats

After our outstanding view of lions in Chobe, we had a quick breakfast and headed to little Kasane airport for our flight to Maun, known as the Gateway to the Okavango.  We were met by our driver for the five hour drive to Camp Xakanaxa, almost all on dirt road. And horror of horrors, it was an open jeep.  Everything is called a jeep here, although, mostly people drive Toyota Land Cruisers.  Toyota seems to own the African roads and off roads.  Anyway, we arrived at the camp caked in dust.

But before that, our driver took us on a mini game drive.  And what a wonder that was.  We saw wart hogs up close, that we had not seen before.  The kneel down on their protected knee caps to dig in the dirt for roots or to eat grass.  We had an incredibly close view.  

Then, we saw kudu, impala and waterbuck.  A little anti-climactic after our big cat day of 5 lions and a leopard earlier in Chobe, nevertheless, we were pretty content. 

Then the radio chirruped that there was a sighting of a lioness and her young 3 year old male cub.  We hustled over and watched them resting, then walking towards us.  At one point, the lioness walked by and gently touched her head to the cub.  Who knows what the intent was, but it certainly looked like a very affectionate gesture to me.  We sat watching for about 15 minutes, until the lions walked away from us.  Have you been counting?  That makes 7 lions and a leopard.  In one day!  Wow.

Cats, Cats

To continue from my last post, the next sighting of the day was a leopard. Right in front of our eyes it came out from a bush. We couldn't let it get away so easily so we drove our jeep quietly to block its path. The leopard looked at us and everyone excitedly got out their cameras. It was like it was posing for us. We exspected that was it; we thought it would run away now. Leopard sightings usually only last a few seconds. Its sleek fur was glistening in the sunlight. To our surprise it started to walk towards our jeep. It was gorgeous as it strode past us. Once it got close it walked straight beside the jeep and then turned to go around the back. It was so close we could've touched it. But I doubt anyone would've wanted to. Even after its face was out of veiw, we still watched it prance away its gleeful tail swaying behind it. All we could see as it disapeared into the bush was the black tip of its tail. Then we lost it. Our guide was more suprised at the events so far then we were. He had no clue how we lucked out so much in one drive. Not just the sighting but the length of time. We must've watched it for 2 minutes. You can bet that all of us were overjoyed it wasn't shy. We drove away happy people. Everyone grinning at the spectacle we had seen. 

But that's not all. With only minutes in our game drive we expected nothing more. Neither did our guide. But to our suprise on the left hand side, there was a male and female lion basking in the sun.   They were CLOSE.  We couldn't believe it. Seeing one cat in a drive is special but seeing 6!?!? 

The lioness was sleeping soundly and aparently we did not change anything. But the male was sitting proudly with his head up. He looked straight at our jeep with his yellowy gold eyes. His full mane framed his face perfectly. The pictures could have come out of national geographic we were so close to them. Not only that but they were in the wide open. Seeing as they are the top of the food chain around there, they have nothing to worry about. 

We kept watching and saw the female roll on her back streching as if she had jusk awoken from her morning nap. 

We wished we could've stayed longer but we had a plane to catch so we sadly waved good bye to the lions and headed back to our lodge to start yet another adventure in Africa. 

But as we were turning in, our guide turns to us and asks us not to leave. We give him a confused look and then he clarifies " You brought us all the animals, I haven't had that great a drive in years!" We smiled and said goodbye and thank you! And in the morning there I was thinking of sleep! That just shows that you should never skip a game drive when a lion might be on the line!     

by Jamie Gibson

Big Cat Wake-up Call

Jamie has been wonderful at getting up in the morning.  When that alarm goes off, even if it's 5 a.m., she's out of bed in a flash.  Now, waking up, that takes quite a bit longer.

On the 25th June, at Chobe, she was suddenly and spectacularly woken up.  I'll let her tell you about it in her own words:

It was pitch black when we started our drive that morning. I can't lie, I was not enthusiastic. At that point sleep was the only thing on my mind. As it got lighter, and we passed more impala, I was still not awake. 

But then our driver gets a call from another vehicle that says that nearby there is a lioness and her cubs. Immedietly I perk up at the words. Since lions are my favourite animal I was over the moon to hear there were cubs in the area. I sat up straight and grabbed the binoculars feeling less sleepy now. As we got closer we saw 3 jeeps already there. 

We pulled up to a front row seat and a mere 30 meters away behind some bushes were 2 cubs!  

They were happily playing and wrestling with each other biting each others' ears and then running behind a bush. It was the strangest mixture of hide and seek and tag! They didn't seem bothered by us at all. It was the first cub sighting for all of us. We watched in awe. 

Not to forget abot the mother, she was nearby eating the leftovers of her last kill. Every few minutes she was in the middle of the cubs playing. Food was obviously not on the cubs' mind at that current moment. They were 3 months old and still playful as ever. Our driver told us the rareness of seeing cubs in the open like this. We must have sat there for 45 minutes watching happily! What an amazing thing to wake up to! 

Chobe River: A Wildlife Paradise

The Chobe River, which feeds the Zambesi, flowed right by the Chobe Safari Lodge where we were staying.  Part of our package included two boat cruises, and right after our arrival, we set off from the dock of our hotel, in a covered open boat for a cruise down the Chobe River.  There were lush grassy islands, set against the deep blue water of the river.  

We had seen elephants in the distance from the terrace as we ate lunch, but now we saw lots of elephants up close.  There were many herds on the islands, including many with babies.  We also saw some herds on the mainland, and one herd swam (walked?) across to the island together, with the little baby following close to its mum.  We almost wore out the camera.  Just when we would make a resolution 'No more pictures!', we would see an adorable baby elephant, and couldn't resist one more snap.  There are supposed to be 40,000 elephants in Chobe National Park, but I estimate we only saw a few hundred!

Here are some elephants starting out from the mainland toward the island in the middle of the river.  

We watched the baby swim across holding onto the mother's tail:

We also saw many crocodiles.  They glowed with gold and green irridescence in the sun.  We saw them outlined against light sand, green grass or water, and they all looked different depending on the background.  They were huge.

We saw countless birds of all kinds - beautiful bea eaters, egrets, ibis, stork (both yellow-billed and spoonbill), grey herons, eagles, and the pretty African jacanah. (but more about that later)

There were lots of different antelopes there too.  The ubiquitous and beautiful impala of course, but also the less common waterbuck, and the lechwek and kuku.  We were fortunate to be sitting near a guide from S. Africa who's been doing tours for over 25 years, and identified the latter two for us.

We saw many hippos, including a few out of the water.  They spend most of the time in the water due to the sensitivity of their skin to the sun, but towards the end of the afternoon, more were arising from the water.

Perhaps the most amazing thing was to see a variety of animals all at one time.  At one stop, we saw 2 crocodiles, a Monitor lizard, impala, kudu, baboons, hippos and elephants.  With a reasonable wide-angle lens we could have captured them all.  

Another interesting species we saw was Genus Photographius, whose main distinguishing characteristic was a mammoth lens extension: