Kalahari Plains
Our second stop was at Kalahari Plains located in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in central Botswana. While the Kalahari Desert covers most of Botswana, this part has no permanent water source with the exception of a few man-made ponds.
Nikon D850, 600mm (150-600mm f/5.0-6.3), 1/1000 sec f / 6.3, ISO 280
Kalahari Plains is the only camp we repeated from our last visit to Botswana. As March is just at the end of the raining season, the plains were very green compared to dry and brown we encountered in May 2018. This leads to some great backgrounds for those Kudus.
End of raining season also means that we had some rain and overcast during our stay at the camp. Animals hide from the rain making it difficult to spot them in the dense vegetation. While our second day was completely rained out, the remaining days made up for it with a good number of great sightings.
We were especially lucky to see two Honey badgers not too far from the camp.
Nikon D850, 600mm (150-600mm f/5.0-6.3), 1/1000 sec f / 6.3, ISO 1800
On the third day, we went further out into the plains with the aim to see one Kalahari black-maned lion. We were extremely lucky to find one pride of 5 lions in the middle of the road. Beautiful creatures!
Nikon D850, 600mm (150-600mm f/5.0-6.3), 1/1000 sec f / 6.3, ISO 5600
Nikon D850, 490mm (150-600mm f/5.0-6.3), 1/1000 sec f / 6.3, ISO 3600