Lesson 4 - Never Presume

Here is a lesson on taking nothing for granted when in the South African bush!

A guide should never take anything for granted, no matter how long he has been guiding. There is always something new to be seen.

This was clearly illustrated to me on a recent night drive in the Savuti Channel in northern Botswana.

On this particular evening we had been driving for some 20 minutes and had already seen lots of springhares and two or three African wild cats. It soon became quite tempting to dismiss each new set of glowing eyes as another wild cat or another springhare. However we always made a point of stopping to check anything that we were even a little uncertain of with our binoculars. At one point we saw a pair of eyes glowing on the open grassland of the channel. We stopped at a distance, had a look through binoculars and positively identified an African wild cat.

The cat was stationary and we were able to drive closer and got a wonderful sighting through the binoculars. We were about to drive off when I noticed that the cat seemed to be intently focused on something in front of it. Probably stalking a mouse? We moved a bit closer, had another look with the binoculars and noticed something dark in front of the cat. We were still too far to see clearly, so we cautiously drove closer until we could make out what the cat was stalking: not a mouse but a 2-metre long African rock python!

We sat enthralled for the next 20 minutes as the cat stalked in circles around the python trying to avoid the head as the python itself moved around in the direction of the cat, sometimes raising it’s head up to a foot off the ground, tongue slithering. Eventually the cat probably realised that there was no chance of making a meal of this and, without even a backward glance, turned and walked away into the darkness.

Here was a great example of how easily we could’ve overlooked something truly fascinating by simply dismissing the eyes as “just another wild cat”.

Thank you to Lex Hes from our 28 Day Widlife course for this lesson. You can see more information about this course by clicking here, or click on the menu.