Every day is a learning day

Our guide form  Nkonzi Bush camp, Sam, like all the guides we have encountered in Zambia is an expert in so many aspects of the natural world.

From the habits and lifestyle of large carnivores, to the smallest of beetles these guides really know there stuff.

This is shown nowhere more than on a game walk. Here, immersed in the African bush they reveal the smallest details of plants, soils, geology, animal tracks and spoore. 

In one breath they will use the Latin name for the group a plant belongs to and detail the local medicinal or food uses the plant has. 

These are people with the perfect combination of book knowledge and practical know how. I am always in awe of how much our guides know and their ability to explain it to mere mortals like us.

There are worse places to eat breakfast

Breakfast on safari is an early affair. With a five fifteen wake up it's the opportunity to fully greet the day before heading out at six for the morning game drive.

Here at Nkonzi Bush Camp breakfast is taken informally on the sand of the dry river next to the main camp dining tent.

Sunrise at Nkonzi Bush Camp

Morning sun halo

Juvenile woolly necked storks enjoy the first rays of morning sunshine.

Eles under a big sky

Wild Dogs relax

A highlight of any trip on Safari is seeing African Wild Dogs - they are always doing something interesting and remind one so much of domestic dogs - like the one here having a roll!

There is a good article here highlighting the excellent work being done by the Zambian Carnivore Programme to encourage this threatened species to not merely survive in the South Luangwa valley but positively thrive there. 

Leopard with intent

Wooden pears

No, not pears on a pear tree, but hard, wooden seed pods. So often in the bush, nothing is what it seems.

An encounter with the scourge of poaching

One of the threats to wildlife in the National Parks of Africa is poaching.

Whilst out on a morning game drive we found fresh human footprints crossing a road. With one of the seven sets of tracks barefooted and another showing home made sandals it was clearly not tourists from one of the bush camps out on an early morning walk, but Poachers.

Sure enough when we got off our vehicle and walked a hundred metres or so into the bush, following the tracks, we found a very recently abandoned poacher's camp - fire still hot and smoking where they had processed the meat from the Buffalo they had killed. 

The picture here shows the fire used to smoke the meat which will be sold to truckers on the main road outside the Park, or taken to towns and cities like Lusaka where the middle classes have an expensive taste for bush-meat.

This was not a case of subsistence poaching (taking animals for the pot) which I can understand, but commercially driven killing of wildlife for profit.

Sam, our expert guide from  Nkonzi Bush Camp, called the find in immediately via radio to the national park authorities who sent three teams of park rangers out to intercept the poachers who, we believe, would have heard our vehicle approach as they set off South with their haul of illegal bush-meat. They also put up a plane to try and track the poachers down.

Make no bones about it - the fight against poaching is a serious one and the anti poaching patrols are up against well organised (and armed) gangs. You can find out more about some of the heroic people fighting this scrurge here at the Conservation South Luangwa CSL web site (you can also donate to keep the anti poaching aircraft flying!)

Our own little group then made our way back to our vehicle to carry on with our game drive - feeling more than a little pleased that our information would have given the anti-poaching patrols a bit of a head start.

Shimmering stork

Nkonzi Bush Camp dining area

Nkonzi Bush Camp is a wonderfully remote eight tent camp well into the South Luangwa national park.

This is really somewhere to experience the full feeling of the African bush - the sounds, the smells, the atmosphere of the natural rhythms of a world too many of us have lost touch with. 

This open tent is perhaps the focal point of the camp, where the bar is (excellent gin and tonics) and where some of the meals are served.

Other meals are served on the dry river bed visible just through the tent pictured. Under vast african skies it is a special experience to have dinner by candle light here.

Shadowland of south Luangwa

A quick wildlife snap

Let's get ready to RRRRumble!

Sparing Impala 

Long necked attraction

As the Rift Valley deepened, the giraffes in the Luangwa area became geographically separated from their original extended population and evolved based on slightly different environmental factors. This has given the Luangwa subspecies – known as Thornicroft’s – slightly shorter stature and unique coat markings.

Sightings of these stately mammals are very common throughout South Luangwa where they can be found selecting the finest browse with long, mobile lips and prehensile tongues.

We saw many on drives and got close to others on foot whilst walking in the bush with the excellent guides from Nkonzi Bush Camp.

Picnic - South Luangwa style

On a day long drive from Nkonzi Bush Camp we spent an idyllic three hour lunch break near (note NOT underneath) a Sausage Tree up-river near Lion Camp.

Here, after a cold beer and a delicious lunch, we sat and watched Yellow Billed Storks putting on an airshow worthy of the RAF, wheeling and whirling around as they came in to land on a sand bank in the river, Hippo wallowing in the cool water and Elephant coming down to drink. Then afterwards a snooze as the heat of the mid day sun eased.

The only downside was having to leave our comfortable chairs to drive back to camp - if a fascinating game drive can ever be referred to as a downside!

Peek-a-boo. Now I see you!

A Vervet Monkey peeps back at us.

Happy Hippos

The icon of the South Luangwa National Park has to be it's Hippos. There are thousands in the main river and many more in Lagoons and pools across the park.

The sound of them creates a sonic landscape like no other -with grunts, screams and the typical "Hippo laughter" filling night and day.

African Jacana

The African jacana (Actophilornis africanus) is a wader in the family Jacanidae, identifiable by long toes and long claws that enable them to walk on floating vegetation in shallow lakes, their preferred habitat.

This one was on one of the many lagoons still full of water after this year's rains.

Lion portrait