African Wildlife and Environment Issue 67

DESTINATION

one another, spray water through their trunks, and submerge like leviathans. Largeherds of Africanbuffalohave alsomovedonto the floodplains, timing their arrival to coincide with a green flush of grass in an otherwise dry landscape. It is a simple fact that the water from the summer rains in Angola only arrive at the lower reaches of the Okavango late in the dry season, but this has profound implications for all the mega-herbivores which need high quality grazing at this time of the year. The recently reintroduced White rhinos have already adopted the same pattern of movements as the buffalo, Plains zebra, Tsessebe and other grazers, and confine their ranges to the productive, drying floodplains at the end of the dry season. Following the herds are of course, the predators. In addition to lions, leopards and cheetahs (all globally vulnerable), the Delta is renowned for its healthy population of Endangered African wild dogs, and they are regularly seen by visitors to Moremi Game Reserve in the heart of the Okavango, and the surrounding concession areas through which we pass by mokoro en route to Maun. Sightings of these predators in the Okavango can be memorable experiences; follow a hunting cheetah, view wild dog pups at the den, watch Lions mating, and observe a Leopard hoist its prey into a tree. We did not see many of these predators during our trans-Okavango mokoro trip, for the simple reason that the mokoro is confined to the wetland proper, which is only used by these predators in passing; however, sightings of hippos, crocodiles, elephants and buffalo were commonplace.

In the lower reaches of the Delta, birdlife is prolific, and many of the ‘Okavango specials’ are easily seen from the mokoro. The near-endemic (globally vulnerable) Slaty Egret is a floodplain specialist, as is the Wattled crane (also vulnerable), and sightings of these two species are virtually guaranteed. The Delta is the best place in southern Africa to see Lesser jacana, Long-toed lapwing, Chirping and Luapula cisticola, Coppery-tailed and Black coucal, Swamp boubou, Hartlaub’s babbler and many others. After skirting past the western side of Chief’s Island, a huge dryland area covered in Mopane and Acacia woodlands, we head south across the Xo Flats and reach the Boro Channel. Here the mekoro glide on water so clear that it feels as though we are suspended in mid-air! At Tchau Island, we flush a Pel’s fishing owl from its diurnal roost – a huge ginger giant of a bird – and decide that this is good enough reason to camp here overnight. However during the night we are kept awake by the powerful roars of lions nearby, and the sound of elephants breaking branches and feeding within 100 metres of our campsite. From Tchau, the game-viewing is superb and we all agree that this is the best part of our excursion; however the sight of a motorised boat heading upstream – our first contact with other people for two weeks – reminds us that the end is nigh. We savour our last few days in paradise, and it is with a sense of intense disappointment that we reach the Buffalo fence that marks the boundary between the wilderness and civilisation. Within hours we are in dry, dusty Maun, and all that remains are indelible memories.

13 | African Wildlife & Environment | 67 (2017)