The leopards of Luangwa, Zambia

6/1/2013

By Roxanne Reid
Guide books say the best way to see the South Luangwa National Park in Zambia is with an experienced guide, either on a drive or a bushwalk, so we went on a sunset drive from Croc Valley campsite.

Things started well, with sightings of elephant and buffalo, puku, waterbuck and lots of hippo. But about 30 minutes in I was getting mildly irritated that our guide/driver Duncan Shanga wasn’t telling us much, preferring to chat in the local language to the ‘spotter’ in the seat next to him. If we asked a question, he’d answer with some interesting information, but what I wanted was continuous verbal diarrhoea about the geography, the trees, the animal habits, bird calls, more, more, more. For me, it's never enough.

Elephant, South Luangwa National Park, Zambia

Then his cell phone rang and there was a long conversation while we all sat there waiting, parked on the side of the road. My irritation turned from mild to medium when he couldn’t hear what was being said on the other side, and decided to return the call.

Boy, was I glad I didn’t say anything! It turned out the call was from our camp’s other guide who had spotted a leopard in a tree and was explaining exactly where it was. No CB radios are allowed in the park, so a cell phone call is the only way for guides to communicate.

Thornicroft's giraffe, South Luangwa National Park, Zambia

Off we raced, bumping and backtracking down a road we’d earlier been travelling at a sedate 20km/h. We bounced along the river north of Flatdogs camp and then all of a sudden we rounded a bend and there she was, a beautiful leopard, walking across the veld. We stopped for a while, closer to a leopard than I’ve ever been an open vehicle.

Duncan anticipated where she would go next, freeing us of the other three vehicles also watching her. He took a wide arc and came back ahead of the leopard, and waited for her to approach. She did. She was so close I could hear her growling and coughing quietly to herself as she fixed her gaze on a small herd of impala not far away.

Hippo, South Luangwa National Park, Zambia

For perhaps 30 minutes – though it seemed like only five – we watched her watching the impala, dropping every now and again into a crouch, eyes always focused on her prey. Then, she lay down flat, her head on her paws, head pointing forward. We thought the four vehicles stopping and starting around her – and those diesel Land Cruisers are pretty noisy – might be bugging her.

‘No,’ laughed Duncan. ‘She and I are friends, she doesn’t worry about us like the other leopards. They just run away.’ Not that she wasn't an entirely wild leopard, just an unusually tolerant one.

It turned out that she had two cubs stashed somewhere nearby. Although we didn’t get to see them, another self-drive couple had seen them the previous day. Knowing she had cubs to feed tipped the balance in her favour: normally I’m as concerned for the prey’s safety as I am for the predator to nail her kill. Not this time; there were cubs to feed and plenty other impala in the park.

Leopard, South Luangwa National Park, Zambia

As darkness fell Duncan resolved to leave her to hunt unhindered and we parked off a short distance away for sundowners and popcorn. Allowed out of the vehicle, we crept to the edge of a steep bank to see hippos in the river, only to find a flurry of about a hundred whitefronted bee-eaters take to the sky from their nesting holes in the riverbank.

With such a thrilling leopard sighting, we reckoned our guide had justified the price of our drive. Now it was dark, our spotter leapt into action, flipping the bonnet of the vehicle and attaching the two naked wires of his spotlight directly into the engine’s battery.

We took off again and he swept the spotlight from side to side, seeking out more to show us. Flushed with excitement about the leopard, we cheekily put in our orders for a porcupine and an aardvark.

Our guides did better than that. They found us four genets, a pair of honey badgers, a porcupine rattling his spines as he hurried into a bush that probably housed his burrow, a civet and two Verreaux’s eagle owls. Not bad for one night!

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