Okavango Delta, Savuti & Chobe River, Botswana - July 2022

The second trip to Botswana departed in July with a flight from Johannesburg to Maun and then we caught a charter flight into the Okavango Delta. Here we met our guides and vehicles and headed off to our private mobile camp deep inside the Moremi Game Reserve.

Moremi had a number of special sightings for us. The funniest one was when we drove closer to a huge dead tree to photograph two Fish Eagles perched at the top, not noticing that there was a female Leopard lying out in the open on a lower branch. Thankfully we got to follow the Leopard and she climbed high into another tree, this time a Leadwood, and posed beautifully for us.

No trip to Botswana is complete without entering the Lilac Breasted Roller challenge and Moremi provided some great opportunities to photograph this unbelievably colourful bird.

Our second location in the Delta was the Khwai community area and here we managed to photograph the Red Lechwe, an iconic antelope of the area. Sunrise light is incredible in Botswana and can only be seen to be believed. We enjoyed photographing a beautiful herd of Impala at this special time of the day.

We also photographed another female Leopard as she sat up in a tree overlooking the surrounding area.

On our drive to Savuti through the Mababe Depression, we photographed male Lions resting in the shade and a massive group of giraffes.

We were lucky enough to find the same pack of Cape Hunting Dogs at the den in Savuti, but this time with 6 of the 7 puppies that we had seen on the first trip. Apparently, one had been killed by a Lioness.
It was interesting to see how quickly the puppies develop and they were a lot more sure-footed compared to the first time we saw them.

We had another great sighting of a female Leopard, taking our tally to a Leopard at each location.

Two male cheetahs were also seen out on the Savuti Marsh.. this is perfect territory for them but they are the least seen of the three big cats, so we felt very fortunate. They did try to hunt a herd of Wildebeest that crossed through the marsh but were unsuccessful.

On our final morning, we searched the area around Harvey's Pans, a very productive area for drinking animals and excellent bird life.

A short flight from Savuti took us up to the Chobe River where we enjoyed 4 amazing boat rides out on the river.. our very first afternoon turned out to be a real photo spectacle when a massive herd of around 70 Sable Antelope suddenly appeared out of the woodland and lined up to drink from the Chobe River. Little did we know at that point that things would suddenly change when a Lioness charged in to try and grab one of the younger individuals, totally ignoring larger adults that were closer to her. She was unsuccessful, but it was a wonderful start to our Chobe River section of the tour.

Elephants, Hippos, African Jacana, African Fish Eagles, Darters, Cormorants, Pied Kingfishers, Yellow Billed Storks, Common Waterbuck, Purple Herons, Crocodiles, and a very funny Baboon kept our cameras busy during the four boat rides out on the river... the Chobe River is always a fantastic way to end the Botswana Safari.

Our safari ended with the flight from Kasane back to Johannesburg.

Thanks so much to the team at Thru-the-lens Nature Safaris, Nkosi & Offie, we really appreciated all the hard work you put in to make the trip so successful and enjoyable. The camp staff team was WONDERFUL, thank you to chef Kelly, Moruti, Mr. T, Long John, and Lobs..... the trip would not be the same without all your hard work.

Thank you, Shuur, our boat captain on the river, it's always a great pleasure to work with you ... and to the amazing staff at the Pangolin Hotel for looking after us so well.

Peter, Jody, Al, Kathy, and Wendy, it was such a pleasure to have you all on the safari to Botswana, thank you for joining us.

Here are some photos from just some of the highlights from the July 2022 Botswana Photo Safari.

Best wishes,

Stu.