On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Kabecoo
Lions and other large cats are some of the main attractions of Botswana. They are often difficult to find during daylight hours, and this can be frustrating for short time visitors. Our guides let us know that seeing lions or leopards required that we get up early (before the larger cats sleep), stay out until sundown (when they get up again), and have some luck. We considered ourselves quite lucky. We spoke with other travelers who were not so lucky, having spent ten days looking but not seeing any.
On our first day in the Central Kalahari, following a short drenching rain, we came across a pride that was carefully watching a large herd of springbok. This group included an older female with three young males and one young female. One of the young males was quite thin and seemed ill. He was tended by his mother.
For much of the time she stayed next to him, grooming him as you might see a household cat.
After a few minutes one of her other sons came to stand between us and them. I hate to attribute human emotions to lions, but the young lion doesn’t look pleased to see us. We moved on.
Our next sighting was of a lioness who had recently eaten. Our guide noticed her first, as she was standing on a tree limb about eight feet off the ground, panting. He offered that she must have overheated from eating, and had climbed the tree and panted to expel the heat.
She quickly came down and went back to protect her food, her belly distended.
Leopards are apparently harder to find than lions. We had four encounters with them. This one, by far the longest, was at dusk. Our guide had noticed leopard prints in the dusty track we were following, tracks that were headed in the same direction we were going. After a few minutes we came upon her from behind. She did not care that we were approaching. At a fortuitous spot the road divided and the guide took the track that the leopard had not; this allowed us to be ahead of her when the tracks rejoined. We waited. She appeared and sat.
After several minutes the leopard turned and headed into the brush. Luckily the light was slightly better and I took a video. Although the focus is poor, the screen shot gives a better feel for her beautiful colors.
The next day we came upon a coalition of lions just getting up from a long afternoon of sleeping. Four young males – brothers – were well known to the guides. Lots of yawning.
This looks like he’s snarling but I think he’s feeling some discomfort from the cut in his lip. Every lion we saw had scars: ears and foreheads torn, sides scratched. This shot also shows the challenge of focusing on something hidden in the tall grass. I was focusing manually because of the grass and still got it wrong!
On our last full day, we followed the southern side of the Chobe River. This area gets much tourist traffic because of the large numbers of animals that drink there. They often sleep in the brush that lines the track, and this lioness had come out of the brush to wake up in the light of the setting sun. We could hear her companions rumbling in the bush but were not around when they emerged.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Holy cow, what great pictures. Your narration is interesting too
ETA: Does one say “First!” in an On-the-Road thread?
eclare
Love the cats! Glad you saw so many.
lee
Great pictures!
Anyway
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Go for it…
Enjoying the pics and narration.
delphinium
Amazing photos! Glad you got to see so many cats, birds, and other animals on your trip.
Kevin
Beautiful pictures. The leopards are amazing creatures. I mean they all are but i especially like them for whatever reason.
MelissaM
I love the leopard in the way shot. Just chillin’. I’m thoroughly enjoying my trip to Botswana and look forward to more!
West of the Cascades
Kitties! Thank you for these wonderful photos. The pandemic has made me less interested in overseas travel (read: anything I can’t do in my own car, so Canada and Mexico/Central America are still potential vacation spots), but your travelogue is making me think that Botswana ought to be on my radar.
Steve in the ATL
@Dorothy A. Winsor: no. Nor on any thread. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Steve in the ATL
@Dorothy A. Winsor: that said, I completely agree with your first paragraph!
Albatrossity
Beautiful! Thanks for these!
It’s interesting that lions would be hard to spot in Botswana; I did not know that. In the Serengeti and in Ngorongoro Crater they were abundant. Leopards, on the other hand, seem to be scarce everywhere.
WaterGirl
I love this series so much. Amazing photos and I am entranced by the narrative.
Every morning as I put food in Henry’s bowl I say “sit nice” to remind him not to lunge at the bowl while I am adding his food.
I laughed when I saw the leopard as I had the thought that it looked like someone had said “sit nice!”.
@Dorothy A. Winsor: With any luck, no one would ever say “first” again! :-)
Chat Noir
Big cats! They are so beautiful just like their domestic cat cousins. I always tell my cat that he has 95% of the same DNA as his big cat relatives. He doesn’t seem impressed.
YY_Sima Qian
Excellent photos! I have seen leopards in trees, but not lions. I didn’t know they climbed.
I can’t imagine someone not seeing a single big cat in 10 days, though they are fewer in number in the Okavango. I think a great deal depends on the abilities of the guide, how knowledgeable he is of the area, how keen is his sight, & how alert he is of the chatter on the radio.
Yutsano
KITTEHS!!!
I thought I had more to say than that.
SkyBluePink
Amazing photos!
Kabecoo
Good morning all, thank you for the comments! So glad folks are enjoying the series.
we had a fantastic guide. Local, thoughtful, knowledgeable. Our daughter chose the company that employs him, but otherwise we were simply lucky. We’ve used guides a few times before, but this Guide was in a whole nother category. I think I mentioned that his knowledge of and ability to identify birds was remarkable. It was equally delightful to watch his face as he described some obscure detail of a bird’s actions. Happy, peaceful, loving that he could share his passion with us. Makes me smile just thinking about him.
as far as the lion in the tree: our guide said he had only seen that once before. But after we left, our daughter continued traveling north. In Uganda (I think) she came upon two lions sitting in the lower branches of a tree. Her guide opined: they’ve treed something. Sure enough, a leopard was nestled 20 feet above.
Kabecoo
@West of the Cascades: one aspect of traveling during the pandemic is simply fear, at least for Those (like us) who are traveling solely for pleasure. I’ve had to go to Louisiana from Oregon about five or six times, each trip more worrisome than the last. Not many masks in Oregon, far fewer in Louisiana.
but in Botswana? except when we were out in the bush, everyone was masked. Someone walking down the road, alone? Masked. Someone waiting in a car in a parking lot? Masked. Every single time we entered a building of any sort we sanitized our hands; if we forgot, someone would politely remind us. No mask, no entry. We were told that the government estimates the vaccination rate at 93%. While I doubt the figure is accurate, it was evident that the people have taken prevention seriously.
but coming home to a sea of faces crowded together at SeaTac was alarming…and we made it home safely (only to catch it once we were here).
Yet one more reason to visit Botswana!
J R in WV
Great stuff.
Regarding being first, the proper word to celebrate is “frist”…!
Trees are popular with many carnivores. In the Sonoran Desert of Northwest Mexico and Southwest US there are red foxes which climb the low trees of the desert, and will together drag their night’s prey up into the tree, usually a deer. They have specially adapted claws for grabbing onto limbs.
Prometheus Shrugged
@Albatrossity: Leopards are actually fairly abundant north of the Zambezi (in eastern Zambia). The joke is that you get your money back if you DON’T see a leopard in South Lluangwa. I still haven’t seen any leopards on several visits through Botswana, but lion prides and cheetah pairs have been fairly common. There’s a big seasonal environmental gradient from the Okavango to the Kalihari, so some of the luck involves the time of year.
But these photos bring back excellent memories! My wife is currently in Botswana while I stayed home to tend to our own wild dogs. She should have some interesting photos/videos when she returns, as she’s working in the remotest part of the delta.
YY_Sima Qian
@J R in WV: I’ve seen a leopard place a recent kill (a gazelle) high up in a tree, to keep safe away from other predators & vultures. I have also seen a leopard drag a fresh kill (a reed buck) into a very discrete hiding place in a dense thicket, w/ a very narrow opening, presumably for the same reason. If we had not seen the whole thing, we would never know there was a leopard w/ her kill in the bush, even if we drove right past it.
I have also seen a cheetah chased off its fresh kill by a flock of vultures, which is probably why the predators keep their kills in hard to reach places.
Lions don’t bother though.
susanna
Wonderful photos and I hope you post more. Leopard on trail highlights its beauty, and its majesty?, and I wonder if this is a concern for the species. I would hope not.
Quite an opportunity to see a mother lion grooming her offspring. Are we and wild animals all that different emotionally?
BigJimSlade
Kittehs! Lol, wouldn’t want to meet the business end of any of them, though (the teeth on the yawning male – yikes!) Great pictures, and the pose and lighting on the last one is fantastic.
Albatrossity
@Kabecoo: There are a couple of spots in Tanzania that are famous for their tree-sitting lions. One is in the Serengeti, and we saw lots of lions sitting in the trees (called sausage trees, because of their weird fruits). I got lots of pics, but here’s a link to more information.