#machaba

[funnywildlife]

#MonochromeMonday shout out from #wildographer & music vinyl DJ @vrett25 straight from Khwai Concession in Botswana ・・・ #Instafollow @vrett25 for regular updates and enquire about prints. Listen to his music here: https://soundcloud.com/vrett #Wildography #AfricanSafaris #wildlifephotography #fredvonwincklemann #leopardqueen #machaba #Mmatsebe #khwaiarea #monochrome #wilderness #bigcats #wildland_safaris_botswana #wildlife #blackandwhitephotography #leopardcub #zoomnl #calumet #fotofair2020 #wildcats #monochromatic #bigcats https://www.instagram.com/p/CFIDwipAARz/?igshid=969tgomzobwy

[9daysbotswana]

Though the hyena made her escape from the lions, she didn’t make it uninjured.  One of them managed to get her in the right hindquarters, with what appeared to be a deep puncture wound, either from a bite or claw which she managed to break free from before it could tear at the flesh.

While it didn’t actually bleed that much, once she was finished with her escape, her walking was very slow, severely favoring that leg.  She called for her pack once or twice, but didn’t risk any more, presumably for fear of drawing the renewed attentions of the lions.  She did manage to find a good hiding place in thick grass near a water hole to rest off the pain during the heat of the day.

This little conflict happened in the morning drive, and we ended up leaving her in her hiding place as it grew hot, hoping we’d find her and her pack in the area that evening.  We had no such luck, however; by the evening, she was gone, the remains of the kill were mostly gone as well, and the lions were relaxed.  It’s unlikely the lions hunted her down, since (1) we’d have found the body, probably, and (2) the lions, at least the mother, were more interested in protecting the cub and she’d ventured some distance from where it was hidden.  We expect eventually she hobbled back to the safety of the rest of her family, but never will really know.

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[9daysbotswana]

By the next morning, the lions had moved the kill back into hiding, but the damage may well already have been done: they were met with an unwanted visitor.  As we watched, a hyena wandered into the area, keeping an eye on the two lone lionesses, and made her way into where the kill was hidden.

Of course, the lions weren’t unaware.  They may have let her get to the kill, but they followed her as well.  There was a brief skirmish inside the scrub (which, alas, was too confined to get any pictures of), but soon enough they forced the lone hyena out, and into the open, which we’ll see more of in the next installment.

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[9daysbotswana]

It’s time for the leopard to leave the tree, and it’s also time to wrap up Machaba Camp.  This was on the final outing of that part of the trip, so was the last I saw of this area of Botswana.

The next evening, though, I was just a bit south, at Duba Camp, where it was all about the lions, and I’ve certainly got pictures of them.  I’m going to try and sort through those this weekend, so I can start in next week with those pics.

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[9daysbotswana]

Something about this cat, when he was up on the branch, seemed very, well, “cat-like.”  Something about the way he rested, groomed his paw, and just watched the world around him.  He was a majestic animal, all in all, in some ways up there with the lions we’ll see shortly, at Duba camp.  In some ways, in fact, he was more majestic: the lions majesty is partly their prides, but this fellow was all on his own.

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[9daysbotswana]

The leopard treed himself.  He actually spent quite a while up in the tree, watching the happenings below him.  Unfortunately, during the time we were there, there really wasn’t much to draw his attention around; the birds had been calling warning signals for quite a while, so virtually anything which should be worried about him was long gone.  He just sat there, though, occasionally checking us out, occasionally catching some small motion and facing it, but in the end, not a lot really happened.

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[9daysbotswana]

I don’t normally post pics of the backs of animals; it seems like you’re posting an animal walking away from you, which isn’t interesting.  There was something about this leopard, though, which really struck me.  In some of the pictures of him looking away, you could really see the focus in his posture.  Something clearly had caught his eyes, and he wanted to know what it was.

I was never really able to get a good shot of both him and whatever it was that he was watching.  In fact, most of the time, I didn’t actually pick up whatever had his focus.  

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[9daysbotswana]

We’re about to wrap up the time in Machaba Camp, and it was a strong finish.  The morning before I boarded the plane to head over to Duba Camp we saw a small cluster of trees where the birds were in constant threat calls.  Us and another truck from the same camp descended upon the trees to see what was going on.

It took a while to spot this fellow, but soon enough, he came out into the open for us to get a good view of.  This isn’t the same leopard we saw before, for one most obvious reason: this one is male, the one before was female.  He also seemed a bit more comfortable around the trucks than she did, not really avoiding us at all.

There are a lot of pictures of him coming, so this is just the initial sampler.  He was among the most photogenic animals I saw during the entire trip.

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