Sighting of the Quarter - Summer in the Delta, Baby Leopard at Seba Camp

4/13/2016

Hailey Gaunt, manager at Seba Camp in Botswana's Okavango Delta, relayed the following story of discovery during a summer game drive at Seba. "We're onto a promising track: a drag mark ribboning across a thick-sand road. We investigate. We drive and drive and the bush is silent. We go in circles without the least clue - no spoor, no quip of a franklin or chirp of a squirrel. We're stumped. Bewildered, we start back for the road. On the way we spot the slender neck of a kudu cow amidst some acacias; she looks beyond us and barks. We've missed something.

So we revisit the trail, more slowly this time, turning the vehicle off at intervals just to listen. Still nothing. Until - a mottled body surfaces from the low grass, flicks a tail and slinks away. But the figure quickly and dramatically turns back, flopping down to its flank. It's Bonolo, a female leopard we regularly see, and she's too belly-full to be shy. The last time we saw her was nearly two months ago; we suspect she took to hiding after mating with a big male who traverses the area, to gestate in peace. But no one has seen her until now. 

We are satisfied speculating and watching her full, breathing belly and then - a chirp-meow draws our eyes to the hollow of a log: the frightfully small, rounded features of a mammal emerge. A densely spotted, frizz-fringed face with a tiny heart-nose and rheumy blue eyes is gazing at us - a leopard cub. Anything rigid in us morphs into soft-serve; we're being held together by toothpicks...."