Wilderness Busanga Bush Camp Newsletter – July 2023

In the month of July, Kafue’s Busanga Plains welcomed our guests with the wonders and beauty of the nature all around us. A very busy month for us at Wilderness Busanga Bush Camp meant we have had many enjoyable interactions between our guests and the hosts.

The Plains are completely dry, and it was considerably warmer than last month on some days, with temperatures of around 38°C, plummeting at night and into the early hours of the mornings to 8°C. Guests continue to put on layers of warm clothing when going on game drives.

In-camp activities

Our guests enjoyed relaxing afternoons – pure happiness after a morning drive and brunch, while they waited to go for their afternoon drives.

Having the new swimming pool at the viewing deck has greatly contributed to the fun, and most of our guests spend siesta time at the pool. What an amazing thing it is to be at the deck, watching the lechwe herds parade past, while hippos do their yawning wallowing thing, and birds show off their beauty.

Our guests also enjoyed their sundowners at the pool and deck, watching the sun slowly set as the beautiful skies softly welcomed the evening, ready for stargazing.

Out-of-camp activities and sightings

It was a month of boat rides on our Go-Devil boat, along with the usual game drives. July was filled with sightings that left guests genuinely delighted, making their stays all the more memorable.

This month we had a particularly high percentage of sightings of servals and cheetahs.

It is rare indeed to see servals, but this month was full of surprises, including frequent sightings of these elusive cats – very exciting for the guests! They found it amazing that despite the fact that servals are rare and solitary, they “made themselves available” this month, with the most interesting sightings being of their hunting technique. They prey on tiny creatures including birds and insects, and use their forelimbs to reach into burrows. Fascinating.

Another sighting this month was the famous fastest land animal, the cheetah – capable of speeds up to 80 km/h and much higher. It is always breath-taking to see this sleek and beautiful, small-headed animal hunt its prey down and kill it through suffocation, then watching her rest after a hunt before she can eat. This does make it doubly hard to see her lose out on a meal after a long battle though.

Other great sightings we recorded were of side-striped jackals, prides of lions, waterbuck, bushbuck, puku, wildebeest, mongooses, porcupines, oribi, sable, crocodiles, grey crowned cranes, wattled cranes, dark-capped bulbul, among many more species.