Tag: Cheetah

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Exploring Madikwe Game Reserve : Day 1

This story has a few twists and turns even before we arrive in Madikwe Game Reserve. Shortly after our 2024 Okavango trip (links to all posts for that trip in my Archives), we started researching our next destination. Many South Africans are unaware of Madikwe, in Northwest Province, close to the Botswana border, despite this being the fifth largest game reserve in South Africa. One of the big attractions of this reserve, as far as I am concerned, is that it boasts a healthy African Wild Dog population. The reserve is run as a partnership between government, private lodge owners and local population. Since some of the lodges offer SADC specials, we decided to make use of on of these offers. Bookings were handled by Biggestleaf Travel, who had also organised our Okavango trip.

Soon we had decided on a suitable lodge, one of our major requirements being that it had to have a photography hide. Jaci’s Tree Lodge seemed like a great option, with good SADC specials and a lovely hide. However, no sooner had we paid our deposit, than we received an email informing us that the lodge had suffered severe flood damage and all bookings were being canceled, leaving us with three options: cancel and get a refund, postpone until an unknown date when they would be ready to receive guests again or book another, more expensive lodge where the SADC specials were not nearly as good as Jaci’s. Since we had made up our minds that we wanted to visit Madikwe and had already arranged leave for our intended dates, we opted for the third choice.

On the morning of our departure from Gqeberha, the weather forecast was for heavy winds. Our Airlink flight was luckily able to take off before the wind picked up too much. Arriving in Johannesburg, I saw that the flight meant to arrive in Gqeberha 20 minutes after our scheduled departure, could not land due to the severe wind.

A 3 hour wait at OR Tambo, followed by a short hop in the ubiquitous Cessna Caravan, saw us arriving at Impodimo lodge just in time for High Tea.

After tea, we set out on our first game drive. Our guide, Sam, informed us that the cheetahs had been spotted at the opposite end of the reserve and that we could choose between a hard drive to get there in time, or a leisurely game drive which would not allow us enough time to get to see them. Since we were keen to see them and one other couple on the vehicle, who were on their last day at Madikwe, were equally keen, the choice was made to go for the cheetahs. Having found them, I was slightly disappointed to notice that both were collared. This was understandably necessary from a conservation perspective, since the reserve had recently lost two females, only had four males left and were trying to study their behaviour before reintroduction of more females. From a photography perspective, this meant that I had to stick to tightly framed and cropped head shots if I did not want the unsightly collars in my photos.

We stuck around with them as long as possible. Having seen them launch an unsuccessful hunting attempt, we decided that it was time to return to the lodge, arriving back well after dark and just in time for an excellent dinner.

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Okavango Photo Safari: Looking for the Painted Wolves: Day 4: Pom Pom to Splash

On this morning we again went out early, looking for the Painted Dogs in the region where another guide had told Ryder that he had seen their tracks recently. I had stopped taking malaria prophylaxis and was starting to recover from the side effects.

Although I am not a true “birder”, more of an occasional opportunistic bird photographer, I did enjoy photographing this beautiful African Hawk Eagle in flight.

Soon we came upon two beautiful cheetahs, who were rather shy and not overly keen to be photographed. We managed to get some long range photos of them, but when we tried to approach closer, they moved away and we decided not to disturb them further.

Moving further in our search of the Wild Dogs, we found a leopard cub in a tree, happily eating a young impala. The cub’s mother was nearby, eyeing an adult impala for the kill, possibly even the mother of the one being eaten by her cub. One is reminded that nature, in all its beauty, can be harsh.

We returned to camp, still not having found the Wild Dogs. After brunch, it was time to depart Pom Pom, on our way to Splash camp. We flew across Moremi Game Reserve, from South-west to North-east, landing at Kwara landing strip. Flying across the Okavango delta, one cannot help but to be impressed by the beauty of the flood plains below. At this time of year, there is very little water and the areas which are covered by water in the flood season, are seen as large green, grass covered plains.

Landing at Kwara, we saw an elephant next to the landing strip and were later told that the guides had to chase it away from the landing strip just before our arrival.

We were met by our guide ST (who jokingly told me that ST stands for “Serious Trouble”) and tracker SB.

After settling in to our accommodation, we went for an afternoon drive. ST told us that the large pack of Wild Dogs had moved to neighboring Khwai around 4 or 5 days earlier, but could be expected back in the Kwara concession soon. We explored in the direction of Khwai, up to the boundary between the concessions, without finding their tracks. ST indicated that he thought they could be on an island, to which the only vehicle access was a crossing in the Kwara concession, close to the Khwai boundary. Due to the distance from our camp, we could not explore this in the late afternoon, but would return in the morning.

On our way back to camp, we stopped for sundowners and to appreciate another beautiful sunset.

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Okavango Photography Safari: Looking for Painted Wolves and finding so much more. Day 1, Gqeberha to Pom Pom

This trip was almost two years in the planning. We first met Grant Atkinson at Pangolin Photo Safaris in Chobe in October 2022. In our conversations, I mentioned that I would like to photograph African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus). His response was that the best place to do this, would be the private concessions in the Okavango region of Botswana. Almost a year later, and after a visit to Kruger National Park, where I was fortunate to see and photograph these magnificent animals twice, but in less than optimal circumstances for photography, I contacted Grant again. We started organising this trip with the help of Joanne from Biggestleaf Travel.

A lot of effort went into planning the trip in such a way that we had the best chance of finding the Wild Dogs, while keeping it somewhat affordable. We eventually decided on three Kwando camps: Pom Pom, Splash and Four Rivers.

At last the time arrived and we were on our way, taking an early flight from Gqeberha to Johannesburg, where we met Grant at the airport. From here we flew to Maun in Botswana, where we transferred to a 6 seater plane, piloted by a charming young lady, Ruby, for our short flight to Pom Pom.

At Pom Pom we were met by our guide, Ryder and tracker, Zuma and taken to camp. After settling in to our rooms and a quick snack, we were out on our first game drive. We started with a little warm-up at a pool filled with hippo’s, who were quite active.

A lioness, initially lying on short grass and then getting up and walking towards us, gave me my first opportunity to try out the technique of low angle photography, lowering the camera from the vehicle with a monopod and using a remote shutter release, both of which I had purchased on Grant’s advice, during the planning stage of the trip.

As the sun was setting, we encountered a Cheetah in the long grass, a difficult photo to take in low light.

The end of our first day, brought the first magnificent sunset.

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