We plan to start trapping for leopard again in the next week or so – and here is our candidate. Quite happy to be drinking in broad daylight… Let’s hope he is as happy to enter the trap that we have placed close to this waterhole…

This is what we might call ‘closely guarding one’s cubs’! The camera here is mounted on a pole in the middle of the waterhole.

African Hawk Eagles are common visitors to our waterholes, and one advantage they gain in these locations is that the areas around waterholes are generally open. This makes their prey (other birds) vulnerable to an aerial assault. Here we see an eagle in ‘final approach’, and then a different individual that has succeeded in catching a helmeted guineafowl.

Some bird species exhibit melanism – the development of dark-coloured pigments, which is the opposite of albinism. Here we see a melanistic gabar goshawk Melierax gabar making a rapid exit from the vicinity of the waterhole. Generally these colour variants are quite rare, although this species of goshawk is recorded as occasionally producing a dark-form individual.

 Some recent arrivals in our Himba Pride...