June to August

The second big push of water comes down the Okavango reaching its peak at Mombo in July. Flood plains directly infront of camp are covered in a foot of water, flowing right up to the camp itself. On the whole most days are clear with beautiful blue skies and a slight chill each morning. Some days are dramatic with sever chills at night that stay for the morning game drives. The sun however soon burns through, evaporating the cold mist from the night before, turning the winter day into warm and clear days.

This time of year is the middle of the dry season and the grasses have all become light brown, dry and lack the nutrients the game needs. Coupled with the fact that the watering holes in the woodlands have also dried up, the game starts to leave the woodlands in search of water and the sources of good grass that surround the floodplains.

As the grasses dry out they drop their seeds providing yet another food source for the thousands of birds. Some, such as the red –billed Queleas fill the grasslands in their millions. It is a stunning time of year for birders and safari lovers alike as the Okavango is the only place in Botswana where there is a second wet season and many animals migrate to the area, congregating around the flood waters.

The cold nights have an affect on the game which tends to stay out in the open for longer, basking in the sunlight to take away the chill form the night before.

Mombo Newsletter - June 05

We're in the depths of winter now in the Okavango: warm, dry breezy days, and cool (sometimes almost cold!) nights. This year has not been as cold as 2004, but we have still noticed a definite drop in temperatures during June. Daytime temperatures ranged between 23°C (76°F) and 30°C (90°F). Overnight temperatures were cooler than in June, ranging from 7°C (44°F) and 15°C (60°F). Gentle breezes blowing in from the water helped make the higher midday temperatures much more bearable. So a perfect time of year to visit Mombo. But then it is always the perfect time to come to Mombo!

This month has been all about the annual flood. It's a very special time of year, and one which perfectly illustrates the paradox of the Okavango Delta - there is much more water in the area now in the dry season than there is in the wet season! All of the pans which were filled by rainwater last summer have now evaporated under the hot African sun, and so animals are dependent on the steady influx of water which has made its way from the Benguela Plateau of Angola, through Namibia's Caprivi Strip, and then along the Okavango Panhandle in extreme northern Botswana.

Once the waters cross the Gumare fault line they fan out in the shape of a welcoming hand, life-giving fingers reaching out across the Kalahari sand deposits, bringing essential nutrients with them. Tectonic movements, sedimentary deposition and the actions of hippo dislodging papyrus islands in the upper reaches of the Delta can have a remarkable effect on the direction the floodwaters take. This year, as last, we suspect that much of the flow has been diverted to the West, and this means that water may reach Lake Ngami beyond Maun for only the second time in two decades.

This still leaves very significant volumes of water to flow down each side of Chief's Island, and from our vantage point at Mombo, at the north-western tip of the Island, we can see the waters steadily trickling in and spilling out of time-worn channels and streams and out across the floodplains, and then into the Simbira Channel and beyond us as they flow on towards their date with destiny in the Kalahari.

It really is an incredible process to watch… if you look away from the flood for a few moments, and then look back, you could swear that the waters have moved on in that brief time. Everywhere that is touched by the influx turns green almost instantly, as if painted in broad swathes of verdant colour by the brush of a particularly gifted artist. From the sunlight sparkling in the water like so many diamonds to the flaming glow of the rising full moon as it rises over Little Mombo, the water provides a perfect mirror image of everything that happens in and above it - crocodiles basking on sandy islets and flights of white-faced ducks rejoicing in the water, whistling in unison as they land as if to announce the arrival of the flood.

Even though this year's inundation appears to be much less in extent than last year's, the magic of this season is undeniable with vast stretches of leonine yellow grass transforming into lush green floodplains. At almost any time of day, it is possible to sit in Camp and watch lechwe running through the water, or massive buffalo standing stock still in the deeper water, bovine masses slowly grazing on all the water plants around them.

The Okavango constantly defies and exceeds human expectations, and many of the "rules" which people claim govern animal behaviour in other parts of Africa simply don't apply here. Try telling the wading lions of the Okavango that cats don't like water... after all, if dinner is on the other side of the channel, someone is going to have to get their paws wet!

In the soft evening light, the shallow Vs of geese and storks flying overhead signal the end of another day, as the spoonbills shake their heads in disbelief at the sudden bounty all around them. As I write this, a Hamerkop has just flown over the Camp... according to some African traditions, if one of these "lightning birds" flies over your house, you must burn it down and rebuild it. That's one African tradition we may have to break with!

Many other time-honoured traditions of the classic safari are observed in our timeless setting, from the tartan blankets around the fire to the three-legged pot of hot chocolate bubbling away in the coals - the perfect antidote to cool winter evenings. Perhaps the most pleasurable of all safari traditions is to sit around a camp fire at the end of the day, looking up at the ghostly sweep of the Milky Way above, and the stars of the classic winter constellation, Scorpio, crawling boldly across the night sky. Sipping a steaming mug of cocoa, musing over the day's sightings in the bush and thrilling to the anticipation of yet another day of phenomenal Mombo game viewing the next day.

What a month it has been for game drives. Logadima, the young female leopard whose progress from a cub to a fully independent adult has kept us spellbound for the last two years, is finding her feet as a hunter. She has started bringing down prey larger than herself, up to and including impala rams. For three days this month, she stayed with one kill that she had hoisted into a spreading umbrella thorn tree very close to the Camp. You know you are being spoilt when the first creature you see in a day is a leopard!

Some of the most dramatic sightings - and most fervent speculation - have been generated by the wild dogs which are tenaciously holding on at Mombo, despite the almost overwhelming lion numbers in this part of the Delta. We had been seeing a group of three dogs in this area earlier this year (two males and a female) and in April one of the males was seen mating with the female. Now we have been seeing the two males hunting without the female, and we think (if we have calculated correctly!) that they may be denning - in other words, that the female has had pups.

Suddenly it seems that a ragtag bunch of three dogs may have transformed into a nascent pack, the beginnings of a resurgence of the predators that helped cement Mombo's phenomenal reputation back in the mid-1990s. Certainly the two males are hunting as if they had extra mouths to feed - sweeping through the acacias to cause pandemonium among the impalas, and rapidly devouring each one that they catch, gulping down great chunks of meat and then making a beeline out of the area - behaviour that suggests that they are running back to the den to regurgitate food for the latest generation of the Mombo wild dog dynasty.

As yet, we still don't know if these puppies have indeed been born, but we can be sure that we have at least one very special new baby in this area. Early on in the month we discovered yet another new white rhino calf, the third to be born this year and the sixth altogether since we started the reintroduction project back in late 2001. The mother is Warona, one of our older females, introduced in November 2003. With her calf being born early this month (we found this newest calf when it was just four or five days old), this means that she conceived within three months of being released at Mombo - a testament to the suitability of this area as rhino habitat, and to how quickly rhino settle in once they arrive here.

Just as exciting, we are looking forward to receiving more black rhino (from South Africa) later this year, as part of our major initiative to boost the population of this very rare species in the Delta to the point where they too can begin breeding.

Perhaps the stars of our game drives this month have been the Mathatha lion pride. Despite their name (‘problem’), the only problem they are having at the moment is trying to fill so many hungry mouths. They currently have nineteen cubs to feed, which means that they need to hunt almost every day - and some days more than once - to satisfy so many growing appetites.

The sheer number of cubs in this area at present (there are also eight cubs in the Old Trails Pride to the north of Mombo) illustrates the odds that are stacked against the wild dogs - but these resourceful, adaptable canines always find a way to pull through.

If the dogs do indeed have pups, then these youngsters are likely to cause serious competition to the lion cubs in the cuteness stakes - one of the best experiences you can have on a game drive is to watch a group of social carnivores with young. The playfulness of cubs and puppies however cannot disguise the serious intent behind all their games - preparing them for a life of hunting. Even in an area as rich in game as Mombo is, a predator's life is never easy!

Mombo Newsletter - July 05

July is perhaps the coldest month of the year in northern Botswana - but it's all relative! We are in the middle of winter now, with generally warm, dry weather, and cool nights and mornings. Average temperatures this month were a little lower than in June, but on the whole we are having a much milder winter than in 2004. Even the occasional cold snaps, when ghostly wreaths of white mist curl around the palm islands before the sun rises, are soon burned away by the tropical sun, beaming down out of cloudless skies.

At this time of year there is an extra special quality to the light in the evenings and early mornings, making for excellent photographic opportunities and the chance to capture some incredible images, like the steam that forms when a lion exhales on a cold morning or a Lilac-breasted Roller perched on an acacia branch, brilliantly-coloured chest feathers puffed up to insulate him against the wind.

July is a time for reflection, a month of quiet calm - the floodwaters have flowed into the Mombo area and have now continued beyond us, along the fringes of Chief's Island until they flow into the Thamalakane River which snakes its way through Maun, before seeping away into the Kalahari sands. The annual arrival of the waters in Maun, the chief town of Ngamiland, is always a cause for much celebration, representing as they do the advent of new life and an annual covenant renewed.

At Mombo, the floodwaters have reached their greatest extent - less than last year, but on a par with 2003. The lower water levels this year have meant that many areas which we cannot reach in a high flood year have remained accessible, allowing for some wonderful game drives along the myriad rivers and channels of the incredible Delta.

The full moon this month was a true spectacle - an enormous flame-coloured disc rising beyond the trees to the east, and slowly turning the colour of old weathered ivory as it inched its way above the layer of airborne dust which hangs in the air over distant deserts. Once the moon was higher than the trees, its pale white face was reflected in the waters which flow past the Camp, and must be a constant source of wonder to the enormous Goliath Herons which fish there at night.

Out on the dry plains, rising columns of warm air create dust-devils which dance their enchanted path across the sun-baked pans patiently awaiting the next rainfall, in October or November. It is as if everything has paused, between the onset of the floods and the start of the rain. An ideal time to contemplate the wonders of nature which are writ large here, and to take stock, to discover those things in life which are truly important.

Of course a stage as wonderful as this needs some incredible actors to grace it, and the never-ending dramas, great and small, unfolding in the lives of the majestic animals which live around us are as always utterly compelling. Every aspect of life is on display, from courtship to mating to the raising of young, feeding and grooming, and the necessary violence of predators hunting and killing. It is impossible to describe every magical moment that has been experienced on game drives this month, but we've tried to include a few of the more special ones. Mombo is well-known, and rightly so, for predator sightings - the sheer profusion of game here means that this area can support unusually high densities of the major predators, and following a sighting of mating leopards just to the east of Camp earlier this month, this situation looks set to continue with a new generation of these wonderful cats soon to enter the scene. Some of our leopards are becoming adept at digging warthogs out of their burrows, which is of course very bad news for the warthogs, usually safe when they are underground. Leopards are patient and clever enough to catch them even here, however - to a hungry predator, no chance of a meal can be overlooked! This philosophy was demonstrated by one our female leopards, who one afternoon was rudely awakened from her siesta by a guineafowl landing next to her head! Instantly alert, she flushed the guineafowl into the air twice more, and as the flock began to descend, she had already selected her victim, and pounced with unerring accuracy.

The shallow floodwaters provide fantastic grazing opportunities for the large herds of buffalo which move through this area, and a herd of buffalo in turn provides a real opportunity for a pride of lions - particularly a pride like the Mathatha Pride, long-time Mombo residents, who have a plethora of hungry mouths to feed at present. The cubs are now at an age where they can be left relatively safely while the adults hunt, although even lion cubs are never entirely safe - we realised during the course of this month that two of the nineteen cubs are missing. This sadly is not too surprising, as there are many pitfalls along the way for a young lion, and only the strongest survive. For the pride to have only lost two cubs is an incredible achievement. Evening sightings of this pride in particular are very special, as the adults prepare to set off to hunt, and the cubs play together in the last light of day. On one notable occasion, this pattern was reversed, and guests on a game drive saw a long line of adults returning to where the cubs had lain concealed in the shade of acacia trees throughout the long afternoon, and there was a fantastic ceremony of rubbing heads and noses and purring as all the members of the pride, large and small, got re-acquainted.

As with the leopards, no chance to feed is overlooked. Perhaps the most unusual moment we witnessed this month was an African Fish Eagle being killed by a lioness. The eagle had hooked a large catfish from a channel, and as it struggled to take off with the fish in its talons, a lioness, undoubtedly attracted by the sudden flurry of activity, bounded through the water and batted the eagle out of the air. Still clutching its fish, it tried to take off again, but the lioness again knocked it down, and this time killed it with a bite from those terrible jaws. After this however she seemed to lose interest - unlike the guests of course who were spellbound as this curious piece of natural theatre unfolded right before their eyes.

As yet we still cannot be certain whether our nascent pack of wild dogs has successfully denned. Each time we see the two males, their behaviour is very typical of dogs on a mission to feed new puppies, but so far we have been unable to confirm this. Meanwhile the legendary cheetah brothers, the ‘Steroid Boys’, have been very much in evidence of late. Their territory covers a huge swathe of Chief's Island, but the impala herds of Mombo are irresistible to them. Just this morning they killed an impala, only to lose their kill to lionesses, and the half-eaten kill changed hands once again when a big male came in to claim the lion's share.

The great variety of habitats at Mombo mean that many of the Okavango's hundreds of recorded bird species are found here, from wetland specialists stalking through the reeds on spindly legs, to the plovers noisily defending their eggs from any animal that might accidentally step on them. A number of endangered or rare birds are regularly seen here: White-headed Vultures soaring down from their vantage points at the top of the giant baobab trees, Slaty Egrets, and the stately and graceful Wattled Cranes. The presence of some of these species is a fine testament to the pristine and unspoilt nature of these wonderful wilderness areas.

The acacia woodlands in the centre of Chief's Island also host a great variety of species, and it is here that some of the more colourful characters are found: Crimson-breasted Shrikes, Melba Finches, sunbirds, and Violet-eared Waxbills, each of them a glittering jewel in amongst the thorns of the trees. This month our guests have enjoyed regular sightings of our reintroduced white rhino. Following the discovery of the newest calf last month, there are now more wild rhino in Botswana than there have been for perhaps two decades or more, and the fact that they can be seen roaming free in the Okavango again makes a sighting of these magnificent animals not just a great safari moment, but also living proof of a conservation success story.

Some great detective work by our guides this week resulted in a sighting of one of the very elusive black rhinos. One of the adult females in particular is known to regularly move about the northern part of Chief's Island; she rarely stays in one place for long. Once her distinctive tracks had been seen, however, the guides soon worked out where she was heading and were able to give the guests a chance to see the rarest of Botswana's mammals.

One of the great delights of Mombo is that we have been able to create a home from home for our guests in the very heart of the Okavango. The cooler weather of winter is no real challenge, now that we have hot water bottles available not just in the beds at night, but for those first few moments of the early morning game drives. Extra blankets on the chairs around the fire and a few extra Leadwood logs blazing away soon have the cold on the run. And then of course there is the food - what better way to keep warm on a winter's night in Africa than by tucking into a wonderful meal by the light of candles and paraffin lamps? Hot desserts, particularly the fig pudding with caramel sauce, have been real winners. And for anyone who overindulges, we now have a new fitness centre, with exercise machines for people who are feeling guilty!