Well, hello there. I hope that you are fabulously well and have had a wonderful weekend. Here in the Luangwa its been quite the week with Monday temperatures rising to just over 40 then Tuesday the clouds came rolling in and there was thunder and lighting and a light sprinkling of rain up at Nsefu and a not so light sprinkling up at our Mobile Walking Safaris. Then a lovely cool cloudy day on Wednesday and back up towards the end of the week went into the high 30’s. As you can imagine the Luangwa is now looking very dry indeed and as such the game is certainly congregating around the few and far between areas of water. This makes the Luangwa Safari House and the Nsefu waterholes major hot spots whether it be for buffalo, elephant, giraffe or a multitude of different birds. On occasion guests have opted to stay in camp especially when the hippo hunting lions (Watch) up at Nsefu park themselves on the beach in front of camp all day.
Luangwa River Camp has been having some fabulous sightings and this week at a couple of breakfasts the guests have been treated to a bat hawk flying overhead. These wonderful and not that common raptors are highly specialized in bat hunting (not sure if anyone guessed that from their name) and are not often seen, in fact this is the first time this season that any of the camps have mentioned seeing one – so I must admit I did get rather excited. After breakfast the guests are then treated to a drive across the river to get into the Park and the myriad of bird life seen at this point is also fabulous. However, one needs to make a special call out to the African Skimmers which really are truly magnificent.
Into the Park we go and like I said earlier it’s super dry so sticking to the riverine area there is no shortage of sightings. A couple of young male lions have moved into the area causing total chaos in the lion ranks and so big pride seem to be a little bit all over the place.
The big pride lions have been spotted on occasion (Watch here) and there have also been sightings of mating lion so lets hope we get to see some youngsters soon. Speaking of which there is one female who had a cub just opposite Luangwa River Camp and is very relaxed about bringing the youngster out to play. Whilst unsure if she only had the one or only one survived mum and cub seem to be doing well so I am sure it’s a matter of time before they join back up with the pride.
On the subject of youngsters, the leopard up in the Wafwa area has had a cub and there have been quite a few sightings of that. But Lucy and her cubs seem to be the ones stealing the show and there are frequent sightings of these guys although it must be said that the cubs are now quite big. I am sure it won’t be long before they are kicked out of her territory and have to learn to fend for themselves.
And as if this is not enough, the skies and banks are dotted with the incredibly vibrant carmine bee-eaters that are now here in full force for nesting season. There are a few fabulous colonies dotted about including one up at Nsefu so the Carmine hide is now in and a treat and challenge for any photographer (Watch here).
One final story to end this week’s update on, Luangwa Bush Camping with John Mphasi. He was out on a walk with some guests in the Baka Baka area and came across an elephant cow suckling two calves at the same time. His guest Dirk Vogelgesang has been kind enough to share this incredible photo of the sighting just to make sure we all believe it’s true so the question is were they twins or siblings? One does certainly look a little smaller. Either way what a fantastic and unusual sighting.
So, on that note I shall leave you pondering the elephant family dynamics and wish you a wonderful rest of the week with plenty of smiles and laughter and don’t forget to look after one another.
