13 September 2025
Today we have a full day exploring the Okavango Delta, one of the richest and most diverse ecosystems in the world.
We start the day with a 6.00am wakeup call complete with hot water provided for a wash, followed by breakfast and then a 7.00 departure for an early morning safari to western part of park. It is wetter here than where we were yesterday.
Our priority this morning is to hunt out the elusive leopard. We drive through the applewood trees that are a great territory. We see leopard footprints. Bibi explains the difference between the tracks of the different cats: lions are larger, cheetah have claws out, leopard’s claws are retracted. We also see a recent kill of red lechwe, but no leopard sighting yet. The guides are sure there is one lurking in the bushes around where we are but we are not to be lucky and see it.
We also see some elephant footprints and Bibi shows us that the front feet leave round footprints (they carry a lot of weight at the front) while the back are oval. Elephants poop a lot of undigested grass seeds etc so the droppings are a treasure trove of food for other species that sort through to find the seeds and insects. Elephants get 6 sets of molars in their lifetime, each lasting approx 10 years. They will die if they can’t eat, so elephants have learnt to protect their molars by shaking grass with their trunks before they eat to remove soil.
Hippo poop is similar to elephant’s but the male sprays it around by swinging its tail. They use it to mark their territory. Impala are much tidier – they use a midden or communal pooping area.
We stop at the beautiful Paradise Pools area for a leg stretch. There are a lot of dead trees because of salt/mineral build up. We learn that the islands are built up from termite mounds – they build the mounds high so that the living chamber is above flood levels. If you can see new building activity it indicates that the termite mound is active. The soil is very hard – due to termite ‘spit’. King and queen termites start mound, they mate and produce eggs. These eggs hatch to produce soldiers (to defend mound) and workers (to build mound and get food). They particularly feed the queen who gets to be quite large swollen like a sausage with the role of producing eggs. Termite mounds can be attacked by aardvark or pangolin, who dig down into broadest part of the mound. When a mound has big holes, it has been abandoned by termites but can be used by snakes (black mamba), mongoose etc.
An elephant family with babies aren’t too pleased to see us and we get trumpeted at to tell us too move along. Along the way we see holes that elephants dig in rainy season to make mud baths (some are now potholes in the road).
We are starting to recognise some of the familiar birds – hornbills, egrets, Birchell’s starling, fish eagle. It is awe-inspiring to watch birds of prey soaring above us.
Morning tea is held under a sausage tree. The tree is in full flower – the flowers drop to ground and impalas eat them. Leopards often wait in tree above ready to catch the impala. But not today, the tree is full of monkeys eating the flowers and dropping them down. The impala are waiting for us to leave so they can come to feast. We watch monkeys climbing down a branch and then jumping off the end.
As we continue on our exploration of the area we see a adult female lion under a tree panting hard. Her belly looks very full so perhaps she has eaten something. Females often go out hunting by themselves during the day especially when animals are resting under trees. But then she gets up and we can see that she is pregnant. She goes down to the water for a drink and then heads back to her tree. Normally lions have about 3 cubs but Bibi has seen 6 cubs. Bibi thinks that she is close to giving birth because the head is always up when giving birth, she is restless and keeps changing position, her whole body is panting. But unfortunately we can’t stay around and wait for the birth; it is likely she will go somewhere a bit more protected for her cubs.
Next we see an elephant herd with two very young babies just a few months old. One has been attacked and has its trunk and tail missing. This suggests that it was attacked by more than one lion. The baby seems to be coping okay: on one hand it will be easier for it to drink from its mother without a trunk although drinking water may be more difficult. It seems to be trying to eat greenery (although it is still very young).
The Okavango Delta is about 80000ha and, paradoxically, the water level is higher in the dry season than the wet season. This is because although it rains here, most of the rain is in the rivers and mountains and flows down into the delta. The water in the delta then does deep underground. The delta used to be 300km away at the Makgadikgadi Plains but a fault line has lifted the area up.
We have a boat cruise in the permanent lagoons of the Delta and see large male elephants in the grasses. Elephant and hippo are essential to keep the water channels open. Older elephants prolong the life of their molars by eating softer grasses; they can live up to 80 yrs old.
The sheer vastness of the area is hard to comprehend – grasses, reeds and pampas grass as far as the eye can see with water channels wending through. Many of the islands are just floating grasses. There is some birdlife – Pygmy geese, cormorants, large red billed heron – but overall it is surprisingly devoid of wildlife at the moment. No hippos or crocodiles. There is an otter leaping and playing in the river, but too fast for us to follow with a camera.
Fortunately we get back to the camp in daylight today and are treated to bucket showers with hot water. Then it is sundowners around the campsite before another delicious dinner.
Tonight Wian plays us a video (on his phone) about poaching of rhino and why there is a movement to legalise the trade in rhino horn. There is a limited market and it is more a status symbol for the very rich than for the traditional medicine that is most proclaimed. Rhino horn grows back like fingernails and many now remove horns to deter poachers but there is still a few pounds left at the base that mean a dead animals is still worth more than a live one. If it was legalised, there are over 8 tons of legal horn in storage that could be used to swamp the market and remove the black market. Attempts to change CITES have not been successful because only a few countries have rhino and everyone else votes against it without fully understanding the situation.
On a similar front, Elephants are becoming a major problem in Botswana. Hunting was stopped 20 years ago due to green pressure but now numbers have grown so high that they are destroying the ecosystem. Culling is difficult be a use of the social structure of elephants but has to be done – but there is objection from those countries that don’t understand.
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