Botswana Tour Trip Report, December 2009. Part 2

December 2009 was a good month for C4 Images and Safaris. Firstly we had a 2-week safari to Botswana and then it was Christmas holidays for us!

We wont write about the holidays, but we do want to share with you a great photo tour to the Okavango region of Botswana. Ill document each day as the tour went along.

The tour was led by Shem Compion and Greg du Toit. There were 7 clients and between us we had 3 private vehicles for our sole photographic use.

Part 2:

Day 8
Leopard at dawn. What a way to start the day. It was a classic scene- a large tomcat resting on a low horizontal branch with the sun softly glowing through the clouds. A perfect set up, but unfortunately an unwilling model. The beauty of travelling into such wilderness areas is that animals like this male leopard determine your photographic success. In this case, this leopard might not be seen for another year by another vehicle and we were very fortunate to see him. That is the beauty of true wilderness areas. The morning wasn’t a waste though- we enjoyed photographing a black bellied bustard doing its champagne cork courtship pop and an open billed stork fishing away on fresh water mussels. Tea time was to be the real treat though, as we witnessed nearly 150 elephants emerging out of the bush to drink, play, mud wallow and swim in the lagoon in front of us! It was a sight to behold and we slowly got right in amongst these silent giants- brilliant! We left one hour later with some of the elephants still not having completed their watery activities!
The wattled crane is a highly endangered bird- with the Okavango being its largest breeding ground- so it was very pleasing to be able to approach a pair preening in the last light of day. It was the closest I have ever been to a pair and they gave us a real show, calmly cleaning their feathers with the wattles swinging away.

Day 9
This morning was rain filled, which doesn’t always make for great photography. However, it does bring out the unusual animals and a honey badger was spotted while Harry spotted and photographed a caracal out stalking!
Unfortunately the rain continued in the afternoon, making photography impossible.

Day 10
After the rain, out comes the Velvet mites! These tiny creatures attracted the interest of all on the vehicles and resulted in some very unusual poses with many bottoms facing skywards trying to get nice and low angles on the mites!
However, the best was to come, as we tracked the wild dogs and found them lying up in the shade. The next few minutes turned out to be one of the best sightings of 2009, with all the wild dogs getting up and playing in a pool of rainwater. I have written about this in a post entitled “wild dogs in 409”, but I will say it again- this was simply magnificent animal behaviour of the highest order. Great subjects, good light, excellent action, repeated motion, willing subjects and excellent positioning!

That afternoon, we sat with the wild dogs again and followed them as they went off on the afternoon hunt in perfect golden light. You could say it was a “wild dog day”.

Day 11
Cheetahs and wild dogs. Lagoon camp is famous for its wild dogs and by the end of the day we knew why. It started with finding the three brother cheetah, who posed on a termite mound before heading off to hunt Impala which once chased ran right past one of our vehicles! In the afternoon, we found wild dogs running like crazy dogs along the road- a kill had been made and the adults were coming back to the pups. Again we witnessed brilliant behaviour of these dogs playing, regurgitating, chasing and feeding in an open clearing.

Day 12
Rain hampered our start to the morning, but keeping a keen eye out on the weather, we headed out as soon as it started to clear- that being 13h30. A long afternoons drive it was going to be- and what a smelly one it was. A dead elephant was located, attracting hundreds of vultures and marabou storks. The fighting and hissing around the carcass was something to behold. The area surrounding the dead elephant was littered with hundreds of scavengers filled to the crop with food. They decorated the large dead trees like Christmas decorations!
We left the smell and headed to a peaceful lake where we photographed hippo in lovely light before the sunset stopped us and we photographed in the opposite direction. (Were far from the hippo by now!) En route back to camp we chanced upon the rare roan antelope. It was many peoples first sighting of one and although it was shy, we all got a good look at its “clown like” facial features.

Day 13

Last day blues were to be banished by the excitement of the morning’s sightings. Cheetah buffalo and wild dog saying their good byes were the morning’s main attractions. We followed the cheetah, scent marking and patrolling- making for very good images. They rested up eventually and we were off to find the buffalo- a nice breeding herd with oxpeckers providing that extra bit of colour.

From there we raced back to camp for brunch and the flight back to Maun, civilisation and unfortunately the end of a wonderful tour.

The start of the rainy season is my favourite time in the bush. Everything comes alive, the migrating birds are back and the animals are dropping their babies. Some mornings, you can literally feel the bush buzzing with excitement.
With our clients on this tour, we certainly had a few days of “buzzing excitement”!
Thank you to all our clients who once again provided a great tour.

At the start of our safari, I asked one of the clients what they were particularly interested in. “Insects”, they replied… well at least I had just completed an insect book! However it highlights a typical C4 Images and Safaris safari. We aren’t here only for the big 5 and their kin. We take tours for people who enjoy experiencing nature in its entirety; and then photographing it to capture its beauty.

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Botswana Tour Trip Report, December 2009. Part 1

December 2009 was a good month for C4 Images and Safaris. Firstly we had a 2-week safari to Botswana and then it was Christmas holidays for us!

We wont write about the holidays, but we do want to share with you a great photo tour to the Okavango region of Botswana. Ill document each day as the tour went along.

The tour was led by Shem Compion and Greg du Toit. There were 7 clients and between us we had 3 private vehicles for our sole photographic use.

Part 1:

Day 1
Arrival started in South Africa and the first game drive started in Rietvlei Nature Reserve, near Pretoria. This allows visitors to see and photograph species they wouldn’t see in Botswana. Thus the first day started with black wildebeest, blesbuck and white rhino as the new species to be seen. Of course the highveld birds were in full song and this allowed us to see a few grassland birds.

Day 2
The flight to Main is hot, but the reward is worth the heat. Kwara camp greeted us with its open lagoon filled to the brim with hippos. It set the scene for the afternoon game drive; which led us straight to a large male lion. He had been mating and lost his mate. So we followed him as he roared away trying to contact his lioness. The soft evening glow of the late afternoon glanced off his mane beautifully, allowing for some great portraits. A great start to the tour!

Day 3
Our morning drive started photographing plains game- and even a fungus growing out of elephants dung was photographed at teatime! The afternoon turned very dark with overhead clouds and didn’t offer us much until sunset, when we witnessed one of the most stunning sunsets of 2009. It certainly was also the most photographed sunset in Botswana!

Day 4
Oh my what excitement wild dogs bring! We discovered them early morning running along as they do. For a frantic hour we followed them across floodplains, mopane bush and into apple leaf thickets. They provided an assortment of photo opportunities, making all us photographers very happy.
This afternoon we transferred to Camp Okavango, or Camp-O as it is known. It’s a water-based camp, with our focus being birds, hippos and macro work.
The first afternoon was off to the Hippo pool, where we watched a small pod snorting away in the golden afternoon light.

Day 5
This morning’s focus was the remotely located Godikwe lagoon. Godikwe is the largest breeding colony for marabou storks as well as one of the most important heronries for egrets, herons and other storks. The colony for some reason was not nearly as large as it has been in former years; however, it still provided some excellent opportunities for large birds at close quarters. The beauty of the location is that due to its remoteness, the birds don’t know humans on the island and thus allow you to come really close to them. The photography was excellent, but just being so close to a variety of bird species and seeing them interact was a real highlight.
The afternoon was one of the most relaxing game drives ever taken! It was time for the Mokoro ride on the shallow waters of the delta. Gliding along in a mokoro, is one of the most under rated experiences of the Okavango. It is a silent, smooth ride that makes you concentrate on the essence of the delta. The cleanliness of the water, the thousands of tiny fish, the way the water lilies wind their way up from the bottom and the tiny reed frogs clinging perilously to the reeds all combine to give one of the most serene experiences ever.

Day 6
The last day at Camp O was one concentrating on birds, with the odd hippo thrown in for good measure. The technique was to glide slowly down the reed lined channels approaching birds slowly and quietly. It does seem that the real insect bloom hadn’t occurred in our area yet, as the normal sheer number of birds weren’t evident. However, our persistence paid off and we managed to get good images of slaty egret, squacco heron, African darter, white-throated bee-eater and the beautifully marked malachite kingfisher. The day ended with another splendid sunset overlooking a shallow lagoon. To cap it all off, 30 wattled cranes flew in to roost in the shallows just at sunset, prompting us to all drop the drinks and set up the cameras!

Day 7
From Camp O it was up north to the refurnished Lebala camp on the edge of the Linyanti swamp. We started with a bang, as a young leopard stalked in between thickets in search of prey. The most exciting scene being when it chased an African wild cat right past our vehicle! After the excitement, the leopard went on the search and with some good positioning, we managed to predict it moving onto termite mounds to scan, providing us with some beautiful photo opportunities!
From there it was off to the waters edge where we photographed waterbirds and hippos in abundance. Another excellent days photography.

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C4 Delta Safari, December 2009

Words and Images by Greg du Toit.

Just prior to the Christmas holidays I had the pleasure of co-guiding a photographic safari with my good friend and colleague Shem Compion. The group we had the pleasure of leading were all from the UK and all experienced travelers and photographers. Landing in Maun, we had some time to kill and Maun, not exactly a buzzing metropolis, meant that we walked across the road to a small pilots café for a soda. While sitting whiling the time away, the group suddenly became excited and most notably Eric and Lesley! I swung around to see what was causing the excitement and sitting upon a lamppost were to rather common Pied Crows? I immediately realized that my traveling companions were not the usual shutterbugs interested in only hunting down the ‘big and hairies’. No, this group comprised keen naturalists and birders using photography as a tool to document and record all of nature’s splendours! This excited me a great deal as the wet season in the African bush simply heaves with life! Most photographic safaris run during the winter time when the big game concentrates around the last remaining water pools and although this is a good time for the predators and mammals, my favourite time in the bush remains the summer time when life abounds in all its forms!

Looking back, the 12 day safari certainly was a celebration of life and this indeed in all its forms! The first camp that had the pleasure of hosting us was Kwara in the northern reaches of the delta! Who can forget the cicadas singing so loudly that their friends in the south of France would have been able to hear them? There were so many special and unique moments on the safari that it is impossible to share them all? For me, the highlight of Kwara was certainly not the beef but rather following a pack of Wild Dog through the bush! It was such a privilege to follow a truly wild pack of hunting dogs as they simply went about their frantic high-paced daily routine. The dogs would turn to and fro unperturbed by the thickets of Kalahari Appleleaf trees! How our drivers managed to not get lost I really do not know? Our poor safari guests had to duck and dive to avoid random branches striking them in the face or perhaps even knocking them clean off the vehicle! At one point I became concerned and glanced back only to see John merrily performing some in-camera editing while branches tore all about him? He seemed not the least bit concerned about his health and in hindsight the tangible energy and excitement of the dogs rubbed off on us all. Other highlights from Kwara were spotting a rare Serval and enjoying two of the most splendid sunsets imaginable!

After three pleasant nights in Kwara we enjoyed some duty free shopping at Kwara International before taking a lengthy 10 minute flight to Camp O! This camp is water based and all our activities were on boats of sorts! The first afternoon saw us whizzing along narrow channels that bisected waterborne Papyrus forests. Without the slightest forewarning, we happened upon a large hippo pool and spent the next hour photographing! Well that is too say, all, except poor Pauline who suffers from Hippophobia! We were unaware of her chronic condition and tried our best to avoid hippo for the rest of the safari which included removing the hippo-shaped butter dishes from the breakfast table! Although the birdlife at Camp O was disappointing, our bird list was indeed creeping up as the camp gardens graciously offered us sightings of Kurrichane Thrush. A highlight at Camp O was no doubt the Mokoro Canoe trip, which gave us opportunity to get close and personal with the tiny yet gorgeous Painted Reed frogs.

From Camp O, our next stop was Lebala, North of the Delta and in the Linyanti region. This was a most beautiful tract of pure wilderness with two distinguishable highlights:

The first being the spotting and subsequent photographing of a beautiful leopard amid lush grass and termite mounds! To see Africa’s most striking predator amidst the superb green foliage of the summer bush will remain a highlight for some time to come! Another very special sighting saw us enjoying our morning tea on the banks of a small lake. An elephant herd appeared out the bush on the opposite side of the lake and proceeded down to the water’s edge. Gazing back to the brush line, we were surprised to see another herd making its way down to the water and then another and another and another. The elephants just kept coming until an entire clan lined the lake fringe leaving some of us spellbound and the rest of us frustrated at not being able to capture the immensity of the sighting on camera? Even Brian, who is no stranger to photographing immense Antarctic panoramics, seemed overwhelmed?!

Our last stop of the trip was at Lagoon Camp and although the weather stopped playing ball, we still managed to end on a high note with wild dog sightings almost everyday as well as a superb cheetah sighting. As I mentioned at the beginning however, our group was not just about the big five and we enjoyed getting down low and personal with velvet mites and fungi! A very special sighting at Lagoon was finding a Whalberg’s Eagle on a fresh Yellowbilled Hornbill kill!

The food throughout the safari was exquisite but perhaps none more so than at Lagoon Camp where they provided additional protein in the form of flying ants (termites actually)! Who can forget my bush-whacking colleague (Shem), walking up to the lantern aloft the dinning table, grabbing a flying ant and gulping it down with a look of glee upon his face?

When all is said and done, the safari was a sublime experience that offered up not only many memorable sightings of wild dog, cheetah and elephant but also many unique, smaller and more peculiar sightings (see photos attached). My only regret to the entire safari was promising Eric and Lesley 200 bird species, only to land in Jo’burg on 198 species! Glancing up at the airport terminal I was hoping to see a Rock Pigeon and a Little Swift but alas my time was up!

Thank you ever so much to my traveling companions Eric, Lesley, Brian, Fiona, John, Harry, Pauline, Maggie and Peter. It was a pleasure hosting you and I hope to do so again in the future!

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