by Eleanor Van Arsdell, of University of Vermont
You never know what a day in Botswana has in store for you. Since arriving here over a month ago, every day has been an exciting adventure full of incredible wildlife sightings, having classes outside surrounded by nature, and spending time immersed in local communities and their cultures. We have heard leopards, lions, hyaenas, hippos, and elephants call at night just before we go to sleep and have had our classes interrupted by lone bull elephants that venture a little too close to our campsite. Right now, we are in the midst of the Okavango Delta located in Khwai in NG 19.
This is Khwai River, which is only a 1-minute drive from our campsite.
A day in the life of a Round River student here is variable, but nonetheless exciting because you never know what you will stumble across. On March 13th, 2019 I woke up at 5:30 am to go on a bird transect, where we collect data using a Bird Point Count method. In other words, we drive along a specific transect route and stop every 200 m (total of 2 km) and record every single bird species we can see and hear for 5 minutes, making it a total of 11 stops. I was accompanied by Louise, Dix, and Dux, one of the community escort guides. We headed out for our first bird transect at 6:20 am, with our GPS and data sheet in hand. Throughout the transect we recorded a variety of bird species including Cape Turtle Doves, Meves’s Starlings, Burchell’s Starlings, Southern Grey-headed Sparrows, African Grey Hornbills, and Fork-tailed Drongos. At every stop, I saw and heard a multitude of species all around me. Elephants were hiding in the bushes next to the dirt road we were driving on, just casually browsing as if they didn’t see us driving by.
An old male elephant (about 35+ years old) casually strolls by as we were doing our bird transect.
The Okavango Delta is a magical oasis with over 400 species of birds, and it was amazing to witness so many different kinds in such a short amount of time. At 9:00 am we finished our bird transect and drove back to camp, hoping to see a pride of lions that we had spotted tracks for earlier in the morning. As we were making our way on the bumpy roads through the bush, we spotted a safari vehicle parked next to a tall camel thorn tree. It seemed like they were looking at an animal up in the tree, but we could not tell what it was. Dix started to drive closer to the camel thorn, and I spotted a long fuzzy tail drop down from one of the branches and I realized that is was an adult male leopard. A rush of excitement washed over me as I came to terms that we had spotted one of the Big 5 African animals, and I had never seen a leopard in the wild before. After we all contained our enthusiasm, we watched the large carnivore and observed his behavior. The leopard started licking his huge paws and rubbing it over his head, similar to how a domestic cat cleans itself.
After he finished his bath he climbed down the tree, settled into the tall grass and lay down for a few minutes. This was a perfect opportunity for pictures, and I managed to take a few of him looking directly at us through my binoculars.
After he climbed down the tree, the leopard settled into the tall grass about 10 meters away from our car and looked over at us for a few seconds. I managed to take a picture of his face looking directly at us through my binoculars.
It was incredible watching this majestic cat in its natural habitat be so calm with us only 10 meters away from him. After about 15 minutes, he got up and walked directly behind our truck. We continued to watch him until he disappeared into the thick bush. Then we made our way back to camp and Louise and I were buzzing with excitement at what we had just witnessed. Once we got back to camp, we had our Community-Based Natural Resource Management class which was about trophy hunting. My groupmate Jacob and I lead the discussion, and we had Mapula, Dux, and Lotty (the Khwai community escort guides) join us for class to get their input on hunting in Botswana. After our class we had free time which was spent either reading, napping, or working on our Grinnell journals. Just before we were about to eat dinner, one of our instructors Dix received word that a pride of lions had been spotted nearby. My group and I all jumped out of our seats and immediately piled into the cars and headed out to find the lions. After 15 minutes of bumpy driving, we came across a group of safari vehicles huddled out in the open. As we got closer, I spotted a large animal with a brown fuzzy mane lying down in the grass. Only about 15 m separated our car from a large male lion.
This photo shows one of the male lions I saw lying down in the grass, taken through my binoculars. I observed him cleaning himself with his huge paws and he licked his lips a couple of times.
The male lion licking his lips and looking directly at us through my binoculars. He seemed curious at all the safari vehicles around him, but he was rather relaxed and yawned a few times.
As I looked around, I saw another male lion on the other side of the road, and 8 sub adult females scattered throughout the grassland. All of them were either lying in the road or in the short grasses. We also saw a couple of females climb and play in a Kalahari apple- leaf tree, just like a domestic cat would play on a cat tree. It was amazing watching such powerful animals behave just like our pet cats do, as they were chasing each other’s tails and pouncing on each other. After observing them for half an hour, we drove back to camp just as the sun set over the horizon. It was an astonishing day full of spectacular sightings that I will never forget. Being able to watch large predators in their natural environment so close to them felt surreal and magical. Just as I was drifting off to sleep, I heard the pride of lions nearby roaring in the distance, just a reminder that a day here in Botswana is always full of surprises and adventure.