Botswana — Savute & Khwai

Nine days in northern Botswana with ORYX Photo Tours, led by Penny Robartes. Savute first — Chobe National Park, scattered pans, predator country. Then east to the Khwai River floodplains on the edge of the Okavango Delta. October 2021 — early summer, when the heat drives everything to water.

Savute — Chobe National Park

The pans are the only surface water in this landscape. Everything converges on them.

A cheetah lay in the shade, grooming. I converted this one to black and white. Something about the light and the texture of the coat.

Third morning. A mating pair. The male’s mane caught the early light as the lioness snarled up at him. It lasted seconds. They’d do it again forty minutes later.

A Verreaux’s eagle-owl sat in a camelthorn, eyes closed, yawning.

An elephant calf walked beside its mother’s front leg. Still wet from the mud.

A family of tree squirrels on a dead trunk, all looking in different directions.

Khwai — Edge of the Okavango Delta

A bull elephant walked to the edge of the channel as the sun dropped behind the trees.

Last full day. A lion cub, maybe three months old, had gotten hold of an adult’s tail and was biting it.

A lioness leaped across a shallow channel, fully airborne, mud flying from her paws.

The whole pride on the move — a lioness with four cubs tumbling around her, climbing on her back, batting at her ears.

Two lionesses playing in the shallows, splashing and pawing at each other.

Late afternoon at the waterhole. A leopard emerged from the leadwood forest, walked to the water’s edge, looked directly at us, and drank.