This is always our hottest month by all standards, but we started the month with some showers for the first two days. The rain fall amounted to 17mm and up to now we only have summer clouds with thunder and lightning on isolated days. The water level keeps dropping at a fast rate and as we approach the rainy season sometime in November, that’s when we expect the water level to rise again. Most trees have been shading off leaves and the grass drying up, making it easy to sport game from a distance.

Game viewing has been good as we have had a lot of action between the lions and buffalo. The pride that has been seen throughout the month was the Tsaro Lion Pride, comprising nine females which occasionally separate into three groups of threes, together with their respective cubs. These lions have been hunting buffaloes almost on a daily basis even at times when everyone thought the lions were not hungry, they have surprised us all and continued to kill. The lioness with small cubs born around February-March this year has been finding it difficult to keep pace with the rest of the pride as at times she would remain behind when they become more mobile. She has been seen hunting and killing red lechwe to feed the cubs.

The dominant male is kept busy checking the females and would follow these lionesses even when they separate and go different directions. His roars wake up everyone at dawn as he crosses the bridge from the southern part to the northern part or back. One feels really in the wilderness when he roars just a stone throw from our tents.

Other game that has been seen at Duba Plains during the last month includes elephants in herds of up to 15, side striped jackal, giraffes that are usually seen around the airstrip, tsessebe, reed buck, water buck, bush buck, greater kudu, warthog, ostrich and a variety of birds, hippos in water and at times outside water. Nocturnal game like civet, aardvark, pangolin, honey badgers are also present at Duba Plains and are seen rarely, but when not seen, we normally see their tracks, indicating that they are around. Hyenas are seen also in the evening or at night in small numbers and also leopard tracks have been seen around camp indicating that the leopard is around and maybe preying on baboons and other water-based game like red lechwe.

We also have a lot of flying insects, butterflies, dragon flies, moths, beetles and different types and sizes of snakes that are found in the Okavango Delta. Game viewing is very interesting if one broadens their interest to viewing the behavior and feeding of all these species mentioned above. Some even surpass the lions and buffalo…

Text and Pictures by Martin Mathumo