Readers’ wildlife photos

Reader David Hughes sent some photos of Zambezi and the fabled Victoria Falls, which have always been on my bucket list. David’s comments are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

In October this year I took part in a group tour to southern Africa, starting off in Zambia and then going overland through the national parks and wildlife reserves of northern Botswana. Our starting point was a couple of days based at a comfortable lodge on the northern (Zambian) shore of the Zambezi River, about 45 km upstream from the Victoria Falls. Our first taste of the African wild came with a couple of leisurely boat cruises along the Zambezi.

This photo shows a riverside landscape along the Zambian shore. The antelope grazing near the water are impala (Aepyceros melampus), the most common medium-sized herbivore across all the areas we visited:

As you might expect, there is an abundant and diverse community of fish-eating birds along the river. The group shown here includes black-headed heron (Ardea melanocephala), great egret (Ardea alba), African sacred ibis (Threskiornis aethiopicus) and white-breasted cormorant (Phalacocorax lucidus):

One of the benefits of exploring the river on a slow, quiet boat is that you can get much closer to birds and animals than you could on foot, or in a noisy motor vehicle. This is the African wattled lapwing (Vanellus senegallus):

Just to remind us that we were indeed in Africa, a basking Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus):

The habitual companion of the crocodile throughout the inland waters of Africa, a trio of dozing hippos (Hippopotamus amphibius):

A river cruise is also a great way to see many of the land mammals as they come down to drink. This female greater kudu (Tragelaphus strepsiceros) is accompanied by a pair of oxpeckers, I think the yellow-billed oxpecker, Buphagus africanus:

A Nile monitor lizard (Varanus niloticus). This one was about a metre and a half long:

The river cruise also gave us our first view of African bush elephants (Loxodonta africana). The elephants here, with access to permanent water, have a much easier life than their cousins living in the drier areas we were shortly to visit:

After cruising the Zambezi, the next day was spent visiting the spectacular Victoria Falls (Mosi-oa-Tunya in the local vernacular). The Falls consist of a long, winding gorge with water cascades at particular points. These pictures were taken from the Zimbabwean side of the gorge, which is generally considered to give the better views. To get there from Zambia involves buying a temporary visa to cross the international border, then an additional fee to get into the park area (all payable in hard currency, of course), but it’s well worth it:

Another view of one of the cascades. October is late in the dry season, and the water volume is relatively low. During the wet season there’s much more water going over the edge but this throws up so much spray that it can be difficult to see the Falls in their true magnificence:

A final view of the Falls. Near the centre, some people are just visible at the top of the cliffs, giving a sense of scale:

There’s a pleasant walking trail which follows the line of the gorge, and some wildlife to be seen. This young male Cape bushbuck (Tragelaphus sylvaticus – although the taxonomy of these antelopes is disputed) was obviously used to people and quite happy to pose for photos next to the trail: