Readers’ wildlife photos

Today we continue with reader David Hughes’s African safari, concentrating on the herbivores of Botswana. David’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

After a couple of days on the Zambezi River, we set off on an overland camping tour through the national parks and game reserves of northern Botswana, stopping first at Savuti in the Chobe National Park, then proceeding south to the Khwai Concession and finishing up at Xakanaxa (pronounced roughly “Kakanaka”) in the Moremi Game Reserve. At this time of year Savuti is very arid, with a landscape of sand, dry grass and skeletal trees stripped bare of foliage by elephants. Khwai and Xakanaxa are on the eastern edge of the Okavango Delta and therefore better-supplied with water and vegetation. The following photos show the main species of herbivorous mammals we encountered on the trip, arranged roughly in size order from smallest to largest.

Steenbok (Raphicerus campestris), photographed at Savuti. A dainty little antelope standing only about 50 cm high at the shoulder:

Impala (Aepyceros melampus) at a waterhole along the route from Savuti to Khwai. The horned individuals are males. Probably the most abundant hoofed mammal throughout this part of Botswana, and (unfortunately for them) on the menu for all the large predators:

A group of male red lechwe (Kobus leche) near Khwai. These antelopes are never found far from water and take refuge in it when threatened:

A male waterbuck (Kobus ellipsiprymnus) living up to its name. Another antelope of riversides or marshy habitats:

A herd of blue wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus) at a waterhole in SavutiL

Female tsessebe antelope (Damaliscus lunatus) with a very young calf, Moremi Game Reserve:

Plains zebra (Equus quagga), Moremi:

A very elegant adult male greater kudu (Tragelaphus strepsiceros), Savuti:

A pair of male Cape buffalo (Syncerus caffer) at a Savuti waterhole, with attendant oxpeckers. We saw very few buffalo, and all those we did see were big bulls on their own or in small groups. The herds of cows and young may have been deeper in the Okavango Delta where food and water are more plentiful:

Giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis) at Savuti, demonstrating what its long legs and neck are for:

A pair of big bull African bush elephants (Loxodonta africana), with a third in the background, at one of the small waterholes in SavutiL

A mother elephant and her calf enjoy the wetter environment along the Khwai River:

As a grim counterpart to the previous photo, the bleached bones of an adult elephant and calf encountered along the route from Savuti to Khwai. We saw a lot of elephant carcasses, in all states of decomposition, a reminder of how tough life can be for an animal that needs huge quantities of both food and water. In the dry season at Savuti they struggle to find enough of either.