Tracking

The dry dust of a Botswanan spring made for excellent tracking conditions.  There was only difficulty on windy days, when the blurred edges of the prints made it difficult to tell their age. I slowly came to recognize a variety of prints and got a glimpse of the stories they told.  Bashi and Meir on the other hand, fully interpreted them while driving a jeep at 40 kph and telling stories to the tourists.  I've got a ways to go.

An exceptionally clear lion print.

After lions mark their territory, they use their back legs to partially cover it with dust.  I imagine they look exactly like a cat in a litter box when they're doing it.

This sort of thing even I can spot.  This is the mark of a dead animal being dragged across the road.

Leopards tend to hang out in or around Mashatu trees.  We often started there when looking for them -- usually by driving in a circle under the tree looking up for the cat or its kill. Later we found out that pythons also hang around in Mashatu trees, and almost never accidently fall out on top of tourists in jeeps.

This is an example of how difficult it can be to read tracks sometimes.  Bashi and Meir both swore that there was a very encouraging leopard track somewhere in this mess.

If you look closely on the hillside you can see the paw prints of a . . . oh, ummm.  Nevermind.

There is running water under the dry riverbeds, and elephants can smell it.  They dig holes with their front feet, and wait for them to fill up with water to drink.  The water is filtered through the sand which makes it fairly pure -- you won't see elephants drinking from a waterhole unless they're desperate. Elephants also return to the same place to drink each day, so if you see the holes, you know there will be elephants.