Day eight - soo many leopards in the Okavango delta

This morning was extra chilly and foggy, the fog made the sunrise incredibly beautiful, the whole landscape really glowed.

Our goal for this morning was to go back to the leopards from yesterday and see how the night had taken place, hopefully they would still be in the same place.

We didn´t have to wonder for long, when we got there we found the mother leopard finishing of what was left of the warthog. It was so great to see that they had not received the attention of lions or hyenas during the night. We stayed for a while and enjoyed watching the cub playing in the grass and trying to catch birds by jumping up in the air. it was terrible technique but very entertaining :)

We were totally focused on the leopards when we heard loots of noise to the left of us, and behold, an elephant in a very odd position. The elephant stood on his hind legs and stretched out his entire body to reach the fruits of a palm tree. An elephant from underneath looks just crazy, quite sweet but crazy :)

On our way back to camp we met a large group of tsesebes, one of them was chosen to keep watch and had positioned itself on an abandoned termite mound.

This day we also had unexpected visits in the camp, a hippo who seemed to think our part of the delta was very yummy for lunch.

In the afternoon, we actually decided to go back to the leopards again, I mean - when can you sit alone with two leopards again, probably never! Now they were more active compared to the morning. And as if someone swung a magic wand they both jumped up on a fallen tree and peered across the landscape, also doing a lot of high fashion posing! The leopard is really such a beautiful felines, muscular but agile and graceful in a way that only cats can be.

There is not enough word to describe how magical it is to sit there and study them for a few hours, the photos speak for themselves. Or what do you say?

It started to get dark and we were ready to go, but Katembo read some signs that the leopard mother was about to go for a hunt. A Reedbuck with a kid were close, so we decided to wait and see what could happen. And in a impressive Houdini style the leopard became invisible, we saw how she cringed but could not even if we knew where she had went down spot her. It could have been a successful evening for the leopards if it were not for a tiny bird. The bird was alarming and gave away the leopard's presence and the Reedbuck leapt away, far beyond the reach of our brave leopard, I think you can see the disappointment in her eyes: (

It is fascinated how animals from completely different species interact and understand each other. The little bird, of course, did not warn the Reedbuck, it warned other birds, but the Reedbuck understood and read the sounds and patterns, which saved them. I think it's really cool, what if we humans would live in the same symbiosis with other species ...

The sun had gone down and on our way back we heard a crazy scream, it was a bunch of hyenas (yes!) who had stolen a pray. They fought very loudly about who would get to eat and not. Biggest goes first, and with hyenas the females are larger, so the matriarch grabbed the whole carcass, she shared it, however with a little cub. This little hairy creature must have been the most amusing cub I have ever met. The cub cried constantly and growled against all others so that no one should come near the food. On one time the cub ran around with half a torso in it´s mouth and screamed completely uncontrollable, the entire car was about to fold up with laughter over this scene.

It is special to sit in a completely open car at night surrounded by nocturnal predators, on several occasions one of the younger males circulated the car and constantly sniffed in the air. Since we had only light forward he could just show up at the side of the car suddenly. Not a good time to start thinking about how easy it would be just to jump up and take a bite from the thigh, haha.

This was our last day in Botswana and despite a great deal of sadness to go home, it's happy thoughts that dominate, this trip really meet all of our expectations, what we have experienced makes you smile from ear to ear of happiness! One thing is certain - we are going back!

I also have to find a playlist of cicadas, frogs and other wild African animals that can replace the soundtrack we got used to this week <3