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 prideLeopard 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.
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