LEROO LA TAU AND THE MAGICAL BOTETI

It is with great anticipation that I set off from Maun with our Directors, Derek & Judy Flatt for the drive to Leroo La Tau. We are taking a quick trip to the lodge to see how well the builders are progressing. We have to cross the veterinary fence and the 1 hour 30 minute drive flies by quickly.

The last time I was at Leroo La Tau was in December 2006 and we loved every minute of it and saw its enormous potential immediately. What a fantastic change with the new accommodation – right on the edge of the dry riverbed!

After arrival, I walk straight out to the lookout point in front of the lodge. Just below us is the platform which will soon be the new hide overlooking the waterhole and remember how we were almost on eye to eye level with a big bull elephant that came to drink at the waterhole last time I was here.

Janine, the Manager at Leroo La Tau, took us from Chalet 1 to 12 (6 each side of the main building), and every time that I think THIS is my favorite view, the next chalet’s setting tops the previous one again…

With the hammering and building going on, the first migrating zebra arriving from the pans are still skittish and carefully approach the decline into the river bed. Then its lunch break for the builders and with the normal tranquil quiet settling back in, it’s as if someone gave a sign and suddenly a herd of about 20 wildebeest at the head followed by countless families of zebras make their way down the dry Boteti riverbed towards the water in front of the lodge. For as far as you can see they are making their way steadily to the watering hole… It is at times like these where the views from the chalets are going to be absolutely magnificent!

This is the view from one of the chalets looking out at the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park on the opposite side of the Boteti River…

The lodge managers, Janine and Craig, are very busy with all the building and contractors coming and going, yet they still managed to arrange a lovely lunch for the crowd present. There are numerous people working on the different aspects in putting a project of this size together, and the contractor responsible for the solar panels (Leroo La Tau is going completely Green and environment friendly) get’s coaxed by the others into telling his first night’s experience… he was fast asleep in one of the old tents that are still up for their housing purposes, when a lion let out an enormous roar right next to his tent! At the same time the flap above his head came loose and fell on his head…. let’s just say he sat upright very quickly and requested security outside his tent from there on….!

We headed out for a game drive and the first thing I noticed is the same wild sage smell that you get when staying Savute! Lions had killed a zebra and there were a lot of vultures squabbling over the remains… amongst them we counted 5 Lappet Faced Vultures which was very exciting. The Zebra are back and it is wonderful to see and experience the sheer volume of game that use the area around Leroo La Tau as their refuge! – This place is going to be a highlight for all visitors in the near future. I am really looking forward to what the final finishes will look like once the lodge is ready for opening. The construction team as well as the decorators and lodge management are well on their way to ensuring that the detail is all there and that Leroo La Tau will be nothing but perfect when open.
Diary Entry – Liza Smith, Desert and Delta Safaris Cape Town Office Manager - Sunday, 18 May 2008

Savute Safari Lodge - Lion Update

As the wet season comes to an end and the waterholes around Savute dry up, the Lion population of the Savute area appears to readjust itself before the cold, dry months set in. The sightings become more exciting, with new arrivals appearing in the area on a regular basis.

During the last two weeks of May, a very large, black maned male Lion has made his first appearance in the area. It was not long before he acquired himself a girlfriend, a young lioness that has been in the area for a while. He has a good chance of becoming the new “main man” of the area, as the other two males (known as the Mababe Boys) are getting on a bit in age. Soon he will have to confront them to decide who will get the Southern Savute area for their exclusive use. As adult males are very territorial, it is highly unlikely that the new comer and the Mababe Boys will share the same area.

At the same time one of the females around the Leopard Rock area has decided to bring her four three month old cubs out of hiding. As the game drive vehicle approached, she guided the young ones into a line, crossing the road with her babies in tow. As the cubs grow older, she will gradually introduce them to the other three females and one male that make up her pride. The rest of this group is seen regularly as they move around the western side of the Savute Marsh.

The other Lions of the old Savute pride are still scattered all over the area. We regularly come across their tracks in the early morning. The area where they concentrate is dense Mopane veld, therefore making sightings difficult. From the tracks it seems like another big male, known as Scarface, has joined up with two females and two cubs with them. Their territory is in the northern part of the Savute area and close to the airstrip. They are not very often seen, but their roars at night can be heard throughout the camp. The Zebra migration towards the Linyanti marsh is coming to an end, making it more and more difficult for the Lions to find food.
With so many Lion in the area, it is anyones guess how long it will be before the old pride comes together and once again start hunting Elephant, the behaviour that made this pride famous.

Lions drinking in front of Savute Safari Lodge.

Savuti Lion Update supplied by Kobus - Savute Safari Lodge Manager

Chobe Game Lodge - New Swimming Pool

Chobe Game Lodge closed off the main swimming pool area on 15 April this year. There was a great deal of activity behind the large green shade cloth screens, and we are very happy to let everyone know that the pool and front garden has undergone a massive facelift.

Chobe Game Lodge Management would like to thank all visitors to the lodge during the time of this refurbishment for their patience and tolerance if any inconvenience was caused. We look forward to hosting all future visitors and hope that the new landscape in front of the lodge will be used as a relaxing retreat when not on scheduled activities.

Camp Okavango - A flight to remember!

The 7:05 a.m. flight today from Camp Okavango to Kasane should have been routine, but as with many aspects of Africa, it was not. And that’s the continent’s magic at work.

Tau, one of the camp’s maintenance staff, was assigned to take Safari Air pilot, Anthony, by truck at dawn to the grassy airstrip for preflight checks. Off they went for the drive that lasts only a few minutes. What they saw at the strip presented a new challenge for Anthony, a Kiwi pilot racking up flight miles this month as if they were minutes on a clock. With all of his experience flying in the Okavango Delta and the savannah regions of Botswana, he had never had this situation: five young lionesses lying on the grass under the right wing of his plane.

As Tau recounted the events later, he said that he and Anthony drove to the plane, but even with the commotion the lions didn’t budge. Anthony made what must have been a flying leap from the truck’s cab into the plane’s cockpit. The lions weren’t interested in moving.

“He said, ‘You better take me back with you, or there will be nothing left but my shoes!’” Tau said of Anthony. Tau flashed his signature grin and giggled. He assured me the lions were in a hunting mood. Tau and Anthony returned to camp to make a new plan. (In camps in Africa where there is no easy way to fix things or problems this far off the grid, the mantra is, “Make a plan. Sort it out.” They always do, and always seem to solve problems in the most ingenious ways in remote areas of the bush. This is a “can-do” country where people are born positively capable. (I wish some of it would rub off on me.) They decided to return. Tau said Anthony leapt into the cockpit again and started the engine. That and the wind from the plane got the lions’ attention. The pilot wheeled the plane into a spot farther away from the tall grasses. The tall grasses were exactly where the lions decided to go – when they decided to go. Thank goodness.

Back at the camp breakfast table, a German couple and a Belgian couple were finishing their meal and preparing to go to the airstrip for their flight with Anthony. Banda, a guide with a radio, reported that lions had been under the wing of the plane. Since Banda had enchanted the guests a previous night with his old Botswana tale about a king, his daughter, her suitors and a termite mound, I thought he was pulling our legs with the airstrip story. Not until I saw the lions’ tracks did I realize it was true what they said about the lionesses. We all walked together to the airstrip with Banda in front and on alert to see the lions. The guests and I found this a thrilling hike. I listened for any movement in the bush, but the lions had moved on. All we found on the airstrip besides a busy pilot attending to the last mechanical details for the flight were scat piles from red lechwes. (There was no time to interview Anthony for his version of the story, other than to shout a question about whether he had ever been in such a situation. With what appeared to be relief, he shook his head no. “A day to remember!” I said and snapped a photo of him to commemorate the event.)

Anthony and his guests took off, while Banda, Tau (his name, appropriately, is the Setswana word for lion), tracker Section and I took off as well, in the pickup truck to track the lions. In no time at all, we found them resting under a tree. They moved away before we could get a close look, but one moved swiftly past a tree and stared at us for a second through an opening in the grass, her fur blending with the golden stems in the bright sunlight of sunrise while the moon still hung bright in the sky. Another day had dawned in Africa, majestic and wild.

Maria Henson, volunteer, Desert & Delta Safaris

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Chobe Game Lodge Environmental News: April 2008

During April the Chobe River came down for a second time and peaked around the 24th at almost the same level as it was during the flood in March. This time round it is also very slow to recede again and we’ll still be unable to use the roads on Water Cart Loop and Puku flats for quite some time to come. The floodplains in these areas were covered with water lilies, and especially on a cool morning their sweet fragrance hung heavily in the air.

Water lilies on the Chobe Floodplain

Love was in the air in April for many of our herbivores species as they try to time their mating in such a way that the young will be born at the beginning of the rainy season. The most vocal and energetic of all the four footed Romeos was certainly the male impalas. Their loud snorts and deep grunting noises could be heard throughout the month and we will continue to see this kind of behaviour into May. These guys would try to fight for a patch of territory on the home ranges of herds of females and then mark it and defend it against other male intruders. The females are then herded onto the territory when they pass by and the obviously very energetic males then try to mate with as many of the females in their harem as possible.

Puku mating behaviour

Mating was frequently seen in other species as well; most notably kudu, puku, and warthogs.

We had a remarkable amount of sightings of huge groupings of giraffe the last month. They often concentrated in areas where there were mineral licks before moving off to the river to drink. Groups in excess of 30 animals were quite frequently seen especially during the hotter hours of the day.
A tower of giraffe

Our cat sightings were perhaps not as frequent as in March but still exciting nevertheless. Our resident pride of lions had a bit of a shuffle as the new males decided the young boys in the pride are now old enough to go their own way. There was a lot of roaring and fighting around the Lodge around the 21st when the big guys helped the youngsters to understand they were no longer welcome on their turf.

One of the young male lions chased from the pride

Leopard was interestingly enough most often sighted on the 10:30 game activities. At one such sighting our guides found a young leopard stalking impala. The impala turned the tables on the leopard rather quickly though. They probably saw that it was still a young animal, and emboldened by the bright daylight they ganged up on the leopard and quickly chased it away.
We had another sighting of a caracal at the same spot it was seen in March, but later in the month found the elusive predator’ tracks quite far to the west of the Lodge.

Most migratory bird species have left the area, but we still had a pair of Woodlands Kingfishers at the Lodge until right at the end of the month. They were mostly silent though and will probably make their way up further into Africa early in May already.

Going into the winter months we’ve already seen a lot of breeding activity of White Backed Vultures and African Fish Eagles. Both these species like to nest right in the tops of high trees, and in the Chobe they seem to prefer Knob Thorn trees. There are not too many of these trees around since they come under a lot of pressure from elephants, so there seems to be quite a bit of competition for good nesting trees. Subsequently we’ve already found at least 2 pairs of vultures taking over African Fish Eagle nests. The Chobe National Park is one of twelve Important Bird Areas in Botswana. These areas are important for bird conservation as well as biodiversity in general on both a national and international level. Since both the White Backed Vultures and African Fish Eagles are considered as important monitoring species of these areas, we will be assisting Birdlife Botswana in collecting data of nest activity as often as we can.

With winter upon us our game viewing is likely to keep improving from now on throughout the dry season. We will bring you more updates on our activities during the rest of May as well.

Submitted by Wouter Theron - Chobe Game Lodge Environmentalist

Chobe- The Best Place to Visit

By Chobe Game Lodge Guide Nawa Nawa

“This is the best place in the world I have ever visited” – Steve Niecel from New
York told me during one of my game drives.
Take a visit to Chobe National Park and see and experience how great the Park is.

Two to three nights will be enough to give you breathtaking experiences with all our different animal species. Have you ever seen a leopard taking an impala up a tree? You see, all these incredible actions can be experienced when staying at Chobe Game Lodge.

As a professional guide here I have seen amazing life activities of all the animals we have here. I was born in Chobe, therefore I have known these animals since my childhood. But in all my time here I have never grown tired of the wildlife, there is always something new to see and experience.

One day I was out on a game drive with some of our guests late in the afternoon. As we were driving a herd of impala came running across the road at high speed, each impala giving an alarm call to warn the others. “Nawa why are these impala running like this?” asked one my guests, Mike.
I knew this was because of the one animal all our guests are thirsty to see, the most sought after beast, the king of the wild and the most respected cat – the lion!
I said “Everyone switch on all your cameras and be ready for action now!”
It was now around17:55 and just before sunset and without wasting any time a male lion appeared from behind a woolly caper bush, walking towards the road. He opened his mouth and let out a full roar:”Hoommmm – hmmmm – hoo – hoo!” He came marching slowly towards our vehicle: seven metres, six metres, five, four, and three…and then he roared again. Now it was a full roar with a series of grunts, building in volume and length. It felt like the whole vehicle was vibrating!
As he passed the side of my vehicle, he stopped for two seconds, looked at us and then continued walking in the direction the impalas went. I noticed there was no clicking of cameras on the back of the vehicle, all eyes were set on the lion – nobody wanted to miss a moment of action!
The lion disappeared into the bushes still roaring and I realised he was probably just trying to locate his friends.

This was just one of the breathtaking events one can experience when staying at Chobe Game Lodge and going out with one of our Professional Guides. Come and see for yourself and if I am your guide I will gladly take care of you and will be happy to share all my knowledge of nature with you.

SEE YOU AT DINNER WITH THE LIONS!

Nawa Nawa (Mr. Bean)