Giant Sable In Angola
The highlight of our safari in August 2019 to Angola was a visit to Cangandala National Park, to find an animal that I had…
Rare species
On Rhinos
We came across a distinctive track in the dust. A large three-toed pad, unique in the African bush. They identify the presence of the…
Family time with chimpanzees
December 2018 I looked out of the window of the Cessna Caravan 12-seater aircraft as it banked and descended. The aquamarine waters of Lake…
Gorillas, hardship and luxury in Rwanda
Africa is still the Dark Continent. It is replete with mysteries, wonders and misconceptions, among other treasures. Consider Rwanda, for example. This is a…
Silence in the reeds
I sit in a mokoro, or African dug-out canoe, my eyes only a metre above the waterline. My feet are stretched out before me,…
A bark at sunset
We were in the Okavango Delta, on the edge of an island of woodland overlooking an open floodplain, sipping cocktails and enjoying the changing…
Giraffe – one species or more?
An essential requirement for a species is that they can reproduce and have fertile offspring. Clearly if they cannot do so, they become extinct….
A day and a night at Ngorongoro Crater
Ngorongoro Crater is a marvel of geology. It is a fully intact 280km2 unbroken caldera situated in the heart of the Great Rift Valley….
The future of elephants is in our hands
Today is World Wildlife Day. Each year the United Nations chooses a different theme to highlight the threat to wildlife on our planet and raise…
A Learning Curve
One morning, while we were out in the Serengeti Plains looking for cheetah, we came across a solitary female who looked hungry and appeared…
Murchison’s Falls National Park, Uganda
Uganda is not a big cat destination, and becomes a place we often visit to track the rare mountain gorillas. This is a fantastic…
A Small Cat Hunts
The Land-cruiser stopped so that we could watch a group of chattering banded mongooses rushing across the track.
Every now and then one would stand on his hind legs and look around in case there was danger. While there one of us noticed a water monitor lizard lounging over an acacia branch above us. He seemed to have an ideal spot to enjoy a cool breeze, and we wouldn’t have noticed him if we hadn’t been parked underneath him. Then something flashed past the front of the Land-Cruiser, and a second later we heard the squealing of a distraught mongoose.