EarthArk Mobile Safari – Khwai Conservancy – Part 2 of 2

African wild dogs are highly social pack animals.  They are an endangered species; partly because only the dominant male and female in the pack breed and also because of humans and disease, such as rabies.  On this morning, we found a female that had killed an impala overnight.  When we arrived, only the impala was there.  We thought the dog had gone for the pack, but she returned alone and ate some more.  While the big cats are very clean eaters, the wild dogs certainly are not.

After about 10 minutes, she left again.  We sat and waited, and so did the vultures.  Sitting in the trees around us, they waited patiently for a couple of hours, until they could wait no more.  Our patience once again rewarded us, although not in the way we’d thought it might.  We were in a prime position to watch the vultures descend on the carcass and the chaos that ensued.

When the dog left there was still a lot of meat on the carcass; within 40 minutes of the first vulture landing, there was nothing left.  The carcass was picked clean and the vultures moved on, so we did too.

Right across from our campsite in Khwai was a herd of Wildebeast, just hanging out under a tree.

We were getting out of the vehicle at camp when Kabelo spotted this little guy up in the tree – an African Barred Owlet, just sitting there watching us.

No afternoon would be complete without a few elephant shots…

Zebras really are beautiful, and not as black and white as you think…

A little monkey stops to check us out…

We captured this red lechwe standing alone in this spot and he was still there the next morning.  More on him later…

This was one of the nights that we stopped for a sundowner, and the spot was magical…

The next day was, once again, moving day.  Our last morning in Khwai and it started off very nicely with wild dogs and puppies, 9 of them to be exact.  We spent almost an hour following them back and forth and back and forth; they were trying so hard to be like the big dogs, and I think the big dogs just wanted to get them rounded up and back to the den.

The Wild Dogs aren’t the prettiest, but they it’s a treat to watch them run…

Wild dogs don’t typically dig their own den, they like to find an abandoned hole and make it their own.  They found something here and the digging started.

The dirt flying combined with the early morning light made the scene very surreal

After leaving the dogs and pups, we found this fellow.  They apparently are very common, but this was the only one we saw.

We were on the lookout for another leopard, a female with a cub.  It took a while, but we found her and had the pleasure of watching her for 2 1/2 hours.

Leopards hunt very differently than lions; they rely on the element of surprise, often ambushing their prey.  If seen by their prey, they’ll call off the attack.  They are solitary, preferring to hunt, eat and live alone; they only time they are not alone is when mating or raising their young.

When we first found her, she was stalking her prey.  In no rush, she’d watch for a while, move a little, hunker down and watch some more and so on.

Remember the Red Lechwe alone in the field from yesterday?  Well, he’s still there…

And, busted.  A bird saw her making her final approach and sounded a warning, so she called it off and headed down the road.

Then, out of nowhere her 2 year old son showed up and she wanted nothing to do with him.  A chase ensued and ended with this…

Junior didn’t stay up in the tree long, but mom did and she watched him walk away

Exhausted, Junior went up a different tree and had a really short nap

It was time for us to leave Khwai and head to Moremi, to do that we had to go through Khwai village…

And of course, we had to cross the bridge over the River Khwai…