Highlights from Photo Safaris with Edward Selfe

Writer: Edward Selfe

IPhotography: Edward Selfe n this series, we publish extracts from trip reports of photo safaris led by Edward Selfe in the South Luangwa. The full reports, with many more photos, can be found at www.edwardselfephotosafaris.com

The following is taken from the middle of a long report of a 14-night trip in South Luangwa in July, 2018, while guiding at Robin Pope Safaris’ superb Nsefu Camp…

Once you’ve lived in the bush a long time, you learn that you really never know what is around the next corner. On our third morning, which was a particularly cloudy one, we stopped for a ‘nature break’ and I commented about the unseasonal cloud cover. As is often the way when we stop and listen, almost immediately I heard an impala snort in alarm at the stork colony about a kilometre away, so we jumped back in the vehicle and headed over.

What followed was an hour of the most heart-racing action that I’ve known on safari. And to add to it all, the cloudy weather was actually on our side, as the action occurred quite late in the morning when the light would have been very harsh…it was all meant to be!

Knowing that a well-known leopard— which we call Olimba—likes to hunt in the gully below the stork colony, I could feel my heart racing as I drove my guests into the area. We looked around and were just in time to see a spotted rump disappearing around a bend in the channel and heading towards a herd of impalas either side of the rim. I explained that if we followed, we would spook the antelope and reduce the leopard’s chances of a successful hunt, so we remained where we were, about 200 metres from the edge of the channel. We waited, with our cameras trained on the impalas, unable to see the leopard but knowing that she was in the gully below the antelope; to say this was exciting is an understatement.

Leopards get into this situation regularly, and I’ve seen it countless times. But there are a hundred ways in which such a hunt can fail. I was just beginning to hope that this one might be successful when an impala snorted his warning. My heart fell. I suspected that the game was up, so I began to look around and assess how best to get some photos of the leopard as she retreated back down the gully to try her luck elsewhere.