We had hoped the New Year would produce the promise of good rainfall which has not been forthcoming in the 'wet-season' to date. There have been some beautiful build ups and pregnant clouds but the winds have come up and chased them away, leaving everyone as hot and bothered as before. The temperature during the day has remained in the mid forties cooling down at night to the low twenties. This was consistent in the first 3 weeks of January although we did have a few cloud bursts and received a total of 44mm of rain over the period. A few more falls have brought the tally to 212mm for the period so far (September – January).

Elephant numbers have remained down due to the conditions further afield that have kept them out of sight, however the occasional bull and sporadic small herds have been seen during the month. The buffalo seem also to prefer the greener grass across the water and have appeared on the odd occasion only, which has left our Waterbuck, reedbuck, impala, giraffe, zebra, warthog, baboons and monkeys to stand in for the 'big' guys and keep us happy. Our local lion pride more than likely went after the buffalo and so they too abandoned our shores returning on a number of occasions to make sure no new prides tried to make their home here; the evidence of this heard by guests late at night/early morning. Although there have been reports of cheetah in the area, there have been no sightings by our drivers and the wild dogs have been conspicuous by their absence during the month with only the odd sighting close to the airstrip on the south road. The good news is that the leopards have once again enjoyed the lime-light and seem to be basking in the absence of the other big cats. The cub was sighted one morning playing with what looked like a rag-doll but was actually a monkey. Mother later joined the cub and both were seen devouring their prey in the late afternoon.

The Sable antelope made their presence known on a number of occasions and were a welcome relief from the monotony of “there is an impala, there is another impala, wow an impala, oh! another impala!!!!”. Speaking of which, the nursery herds have provided endless amusement with their daily early morning aerobic displays of sprinting around bushes and pronking with the flustered adults joining in. These amazing acrobatics make one wonder how they don’t break those tiny ankles as they land with their straight-knees and arched backs. The noises that accompany this display are outrageous and from a distance one would imagine there is a kill is in progress!

Now we sit and wait for the promised 'wet season' but it would seem that it’s now a little late for any sort of good to come out of any rain that may still fall. Having said this, the area is still looking remarkable; their has been some fantastic bird viewing over this time and fortunately, the Pel's fishing owls still roost sedately in their shady corners and keep an eye on the passing traffic. That’s about it for January, what will February grant us?