Although Etosha has had a lot of early rain this year with the park green and beautiful we still had excellent wildlife sightings. The highlight was definitely spending the last few minutes of daylight yesterday with a very relaxed young leopard. After giving us excellent views close to the vehicle she had to get out of the way of an approaching Hyena before she moved off after a herd of Impala.
Another fantastic sighting was first finding a pride of lions on the move just before a huge thunderstorm hit and then finding the same pride the next morning with two Zebra kills. They must have used the approaching storm and strong winds to ambush the Zebra as they were killed not far from where we had to leave them as the camp gates were closing. With the two carcasses lying on both sides of the vehicle and close to the road everyone had excellent views of the pride which consist of a big male, 5 lionesses and 4 sub-adults feeding, resting and then deciding to drag one of the carcasses to a shady spot.
A personal highlight was a rare sighting of a very relaxed African Wild Cat in broad daylight at about 09h00 in the morning near Okondeka Waterhole north of Okaukuejo. After the initial sighting of this normally shy and secretive nocturnal cat and expecting it to move away from the vehicle, we were surprised and very happy as the cat approached our vehicle to within a few meters searching for potential prey all the time. A truly magical sighting that does not happen very often.
Other predator seen during the few days in Etosha include a female Cheetah with cubs, plenty of Spotted Hyenas and then finding the dens of Cape Fox, Bat-eared Fox and Black-backed Jackal within a few kilometers of one another. A truly great time to visit Etosha with plenty of baby animals around and very few other people.
Besides the predators seen on this trip we also had great sightings of Black Rhino, Elephant, Giraffe, Zebra, Blue Wildebeest, Damara Dik-Dik, Banded Mongoose and a great variety of bird-life with all the European migrants present. Etosha National Park is open throughout the year and is part of our Classic Namibia, Etosha, Caprivi, Chobe and Victoria Falls and Namibia, Botswana and Victoria Falls Spectacular Safaris. We hope to see you on safari very soon!.
