Leopards dine at night

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Geo: -12.8546, 31.311

On the evening drive, it was only the two of us and the father/son from Michigan who had come to this camp after climbing Kilamanjaro. We had some interesting conversation about teaching and some of what he had being doing with Project Luangwa. He had been working with Karen and was a teacher back in Michigan.

The first thing we saw were two young male elephants jousting. The big insult is for the victor to place his trunk and tusks on the other ones back. Never saw the final conclusion of the jousting. Saw some nice giraffe, ground hornbills, zebra as we were driving along. Stopped and had our sundowner on the Mushilashi River dry bed. Conrad said that if you dig down into the sand you can find water and this is what the elephants do.

After the sun went down we saw some nice things. We had several sightings of elephant shrew here and there. Conrad was drumming on the steering wheel and he said sometimes, they will answer back. Had two genet and two civet sightings. They were cooperating and sat still for a few good shots. We also had two porcupine sightings that were a first for us here.

Andrew, our spotter had Conrad stop the truck and had spotted a tiny barred owl. It was very tiny and once again, it is a marvel that these spotters can find these tiny creatures! We also saw several bushy tailed mongoose and a hippo standing there wondering what to do next. We drove over to where we had seen the lions earlier that day and there were four of them resting but not really any action.

Right at the end we found Alice and two cubs feasting on an impala they had killed. Alice and one of the cubs was sitting on the side while the other one tore and pulled at the poor impala. We did not get to spend much time because we were late leaving the park.

Had dinner in the restaurant and visited with Salim who was working that evening. Had one more drink at the bar on our side and then off to bed. During the night, we were visited by a very large elephant. You could hear his feet crunching on the gravel and then Robert saw the shadow move across our tent. Ate for awhile and then was one his way!

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