The rains that had been threatening over September, early October of last year had arrived - sort of. There had been a number of cloudy days and some light showers here and there, but only one or two very scattered heavy rainfalls, and so we were easing into the wet season. That said, on this particular safari we weren't rained on ourselves until one brief moment (the shower lasted all of ten minutes!) on the second to last afternoon. However, the clouds and the rain that had fallen around us had welcome benefits, making everything feel cool, fresh and new - although as we headed into the Kalahari coolness was relative! Still, the small amount of rain had helped relieve the stress on the animals and plants, and had bought out the first of the newly sprouting leaves and grasses, while the odd depression held some precious rainwater so enabling some of the animals to wander further afield - in effect spreading the wildlife about more. The summer migrant birds were also arriving to make the most of the start of the insect feeding bonanza.

Our open game driving vehicle unequivocally offers the best arrangement when it comes to great wildlife viewing and photographic opportunities. It is also pleasant, when travelling along the rough sand and dirt tracks, to have fresh cooling air blowing about you - however, it is not the most practical set up for long tar road transfers, something we had to do a fair bit of on this particular safari, as we journeyed to the more remote and seldom visited Nxai Pan National Park and the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. With the first herd of zebra seen and the thrill of the first elephant sightings the journey was forgotten. These elephants, shining ghostlike in the sunshine from the white mud they had freshly splashed over themselves, were set against the backdrop of a purple sky that was black and heavy with rain. We parked in the scant shade of a thorn bush and watched as the three elephants plodded along, eating up the distance with each long stride as they came towards us. Becoming aware of our presence the elephants stopped, then shook their massive heads and flapped their great big ears, and with mud flying off their backs warned us to keep our distance - then they relaxed and continued on a short way feeding as they went, stopping to kick at the ground to loosen the roots from the grip of the baked earth, while holding onto the tufts of grass with their trunks. Once the grass - roots and all - pulled free from the earth, they would give a quick flick of the trunk - once, twice and once more for luck - then thrash the grass tufts against their chests to rid the roots of the last of the soil, before popping the snack into their ever grinding, chewing mouths. I could watch elephants for hours, days!

There had been a big rainstorm across part of the game viewing area of Nxai Pan the day before we arrived, and in the surrounding areas over the previous week. As a result the big herds of springbok and gemsbok had moved out to search for new grasses, saving us the bother of rushing about the place trying to see every one of the 2,000 springbok and numerous herds of gemsbok, impala, zebra and giraffe that might otherwise have been spread out over the pan. Instead we concentrated on enjoying the peacefulness and ambiance of this great little park, while sitting stationary for long periods surrounded by hundreds of wise springbok who had stayed to feast on the grasses growing right there! The small herd of ten wildebeest had also stuck around, as had a few impala, the odd gemsbok, a small family of giraffe, and my great friends the jackals - who were just as busy as ever trotting about and snatching up a treat here and there. We did venture further afield now and then to see a few of the other interesting critters that were about, and yes, we also encountered a male lion. Some of the time the lion was to be found with a female whom he was mating with - that is when he could catch up to her, as the female seemed restless and moved about a lot. A second lioness joined us for a couple of nights around sunset, and we also saw three lionesses resting in the shade of a small acacia tree surrounded by grazing springbok - but all of them just out of reach! There were a few bat eared foxes around, and one evening while driving back to camp we had a good, though brief, view of a leopard that was walking along not far from camp. We saw two kills from birds of prey - the first was a yellow billed kite who dived down and caught a mouse, and the second was the much larger black breasted snake eagle, who we saw plunge down into the grass and come away with a lizard that it proceeded to eat in flight.

Our next brief stop was at a camp set just within the Makgadikgadi Game Reserve and overlooking the Boteti River, which for the first time in decades was flowing - although the water had not reached quite as far as the park yet, but fingers crossed! The waterhole in front of the camp was therefore still a big draw for the large numbers of zebra in the area. However, most of the zebra and all of the wildebeest had already moved deeper into the park and on to the edge of the great salt pan, following the rain storms and the new grass growth. A few hippos and crocodiles still inhabit the pools in the riverbed where the water table is exposed, and on the night drive we could see the red eyes of the crocodiles shining, and the shape of two hippos staring out at us. The springhares were out in force, hopping about wherever we looked once we were down in the sandy river valley. Springhares were probably what the leopard was after, when the sweep of the spotlight briefly illuminated him and his eyes, giving his position away and causing him to slink off back out of sight into the tangle of vegetation. Further on the spotlight stopped on a lioness drinking from one of the pools of water, but once her thirst was slaked she too moved on. Fortunately for us the one animal that seemed to be in the least hurry was a caracal - a small predator with large ears with long tufts of hair on the tips. The caracal was sitting out in the open at the base of the riverbank, watching over the sloping ground to where the springhares were feeding - but perhaps judging that the springhares were too far away to bother with it began to clean itself for a short time in typical cat fashion. The caracal then got up, stretched and walked over to a young acacia tree and stood up on its hind legs, reaching as far as it could to then begin sharpening its claws on the bark - another typical cat behaviour. Having given us about fifteen minutes of its time it walked up the riverbank and out of view - my longest sighting of this nocturnal predator and a great end to the evening.

One can visit an area time and time again over the years and still find something new to enjoy. Driving into and around the Central Kalahari we found some of the dead looking trees coming to life with the first green flush of new leaves, while pushing up through the red Kalahari soil - like the blades of many broad spearheads - were the thick, green, succulent leaves of two types of crinum lilies, one that would be producing a huge red flower, the other a white flower. Standing out like beacons at intervals along the way were small bushy trees covered in beautiful, bright yellow flowers. This was my first time to see the Rhigozum brevispinosum (short thorned pomegranate) in flower, as normally this thin, nondescript, bushy tree blends in with the thick tangle of other nondescript thorny Kalahari scrub trees - but on this occasion it certainly made a most impressive and noticeable splash of colour across the landscape.

Up in the trees we found an excellent example of an interesting birds nest, and even better we saw the owner fly into the next tree and begin to preen. I was very excited, as it was a bird I had long been hoping to see and this was my first actual sighting. The Cape penduline tit is a very small (8cm) plain bird, but its nest is made of plant down and occasionally the soft fur of hares - in sheep country the birds collect wool to make their nests, all held together by spider webs. The nest has a false entrance to fool predators, with the real entrance hole normally collapsed and forming a roof over the false hole. When the bird arrives at the nest it lands on the ledge of the false entrance and has to open the flap to the correct entrance with its foot, then slip in as the flap collapses once again to disguise the nests real entrance. In this case I assumed the bird was still building its nest, as the top hole - which will be the true entrance to the nest - was still stiff and not yet closing as described.

One area of the pan seemed to have something about it, in that each day much of the interesting action took place there. The gemsbok would feed in the area before moving up into the thick, thorny tree covered sand ridge to avoid the heat of the day, returning to the pan floor in the late afternoon. Several sightings of African wild cats hunting also took place in the same area, while in the early morning and from late afternoon we would watch up to five honey badgers digging furiously in the hard earth for tasty morsels, while jackals hung around nearby to try and catch any critter that evaded the honey badgers efforts - at one time we counted a total of sixteen jackals following the honey badgers or doing their own hunting. Again, in the same area, there were several ground squirrel families, scratching at the tough clumps of grass to expose chunks that they would bite off - they would then sit upright to hold the tufts in their front paws, while nibbling at the hard sheaths surrounding the grass roots to get at the edible parts. As it was not hot for the ground squirrels and there was some cloud cover, they did not often have to put their tails upright and over their heads (fanning out the tail hairs to form a shade umbrella) in the manner that is so unique to them. A real treat was to watch a family of meerkats going about their daily lives, resting in the heat of the day or sprinting from one bolthole to another in between digging for insects. When a perceived threat was seen the meerkats would stand bolt upright on their hind legs to better enable them to scan the surrounding area for danger, including regularly looking skywards to check out for threats from that direction in the form of eagles.

One giraffe appeared on the horizon and walked steadily across the pan to finally disappear into the tree line on the other side, pausing briefly to stare down his nose at us. It must have also been steenbok mating season, as driving around and near Deception Pan we saw many pairs of these small and normally solitary antelopes. We sat amongst a huge herd of springbok as they steadily made their way around us, nibbling at the new grass shoots as they went. The Cape fox, which is much smaller than a jackal and just smaller than the bat eared foxes we had seen elsewhere, is an animal that I do not often see - it is also nocturnal and notoriously difficult to find, plus this was the northern limit of its range, so we did well to get a good view of one. As is typical when I get excited about a less common sighting, a second one appeared and then later we saw another and another - after having not seen a Cape fox in the last four years, there they all were popping up all over the place! I think the cool, overcast weather and the first rains, was what had tipped the balance in our favour for these wonderful sightings. At one tea stop a gemsbok came and joined us, lying down in the shade of the next acacia tree along from ours to ruminate. At such a close distance, and due to the fact that he was laying down so his long straight horns were more at our level, we became aware of just how long and intimidating those horns are!

An even more intimidating visitor to our camp on the last night gave us all a real thrill - we were eating dinner when I heard a noise by one of the tents, and thinking it might have been the brown hyena I went out to look. Instead I saw a big male leopard, standing on his hind legs with his front paws resting on the sides of one of the washstands that were outside each tent, drinking the water. When he pushed off after drinking the water the washstand was knocked over (the noise that I had heard). As the leopard had already drunk the water from the first tents washstand, and now from the second, I called everyone outside as we watched him go to the third tent to repeat his routine. Having finished drinking the leopard went over to lie in the sand next to one of the toilet tents, while we returned to dinner. A while later we could hear the sound of the leopard lapping water again, and on shining the torch there he was - drinking out of the fire bucket that we heat the water in for washing and showers. The following morning the leopards huge paw prints were all around camp, and it had later gone into the shower to look for water there as well.

Leaving the Kalahari we moved on to the Chobe River area. We had spent a night at a lodge on the way, where bush babies are always active at a feeding table as well as near the lodge lights where they feed on the insects the lights attract. On the drive north the following day it was evident there had been more rain in this area. We stopped often along the way, climbing onto the roof to watch herds of elephants feeding in the tall grasses that almost reached as high as their backs. There were so many elephants that I feared there would be none left at the Chobe River front, although I need not have worried as we had excellent views of several big gatherings of elephants along the river, including over 75 in one herd alone. We also saw a lot of giraffe, who would stand inquisitively in the road staring down the approaching traffic until it stopped - only then would the giraffe move off the road! In contrast buffalo and one sable sprinted out of the thick bush and across the road, quickly disappearing into the bush on the other side, as would the herds of elephants we could see crossing way ahead at intervals.

After days in the Kalahari arriving in the Chobe National Park, to the sight of a huge river where one could see and hear hippos honking, was such a contrast. On our first drive in the park the rain we had experienced just after lunch had triggered the start of a fresh termite emergence, so there are lots of happily feeding birds about. Some less happy looking birds dotted the dead trees of one area, where there must have been a dead elephant, judging by the numbers of sodden vultures! We also found two hyenas with swollen bellies walking away, their udders also swollen to bursting so suggesting that they were heading off to suckle pups somewhere. It was certainly an afternoon for hyenas, as further on we found three young hyenas walking along and heading in the direction of the vultures. Later on we saw another hyena and then two more running in the opposite direction to the vultures - we drove on to find them again later, tearing into a dead kudu that reportedly moments before had belonged to a pair of leopards.

The rain had brought out lots of interesting creatures, and we were seeing unusual things like a grey hornbill feeding on a scorpion, dung beetle fights and lots of brightly coloured insects. Elsewhere we watched as toads, in pools of water near to the river, went about their courtship - some having found a mate and others croaking away trying to attract a mate of having to chase off rivals. Crocodiles both large and small came out of the river and would dive across these pools of water and catch a toad, chomp on it a few times then swallow it, before returning to the rivers edge. We even saw a small monitor lizard carrying a toad, and another large monitor lizard having a feast on all the baby chongalowlaws that had come out with the rain. Even the lions were more active! - we sat with six grown lion cubs who were waiting for a signal from one of the four females who had headed out over a ridge to stalk a sable. When the lionesses came back having failed in their hunt, the one lioness gave a small call, and the cubs who had been eagerly listening out shot off to greet their mothers - we followed them until they found a spot to rest up for the day. We too had to finally leave and head on to Victoria Falls and the end of another interesting safari.

Until next month...