Botswana Travel Guide
Botswana Travel Guide
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Okavango - Moremi
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The Mopane Tongue
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Khwai River & N. Gate
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Flora and fauna
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Botswana Travel Guide

Flora and fauna



Flora and fauna highlights

Flora


All along the edge of the Khwai's floodplain you'll find some of the region's most beautiful, mature riverine forest. Stunning trees, tall and old abound, including a large number of camelthorn, Acacia erioloba, and some almost pure stands of leadwood, Combretum imberbe. There are also patches of acacia woodlands, usually standing on sandy patches of ground between the river valley and the mopane woodlands of the Tongue's interior.

Mammals


The Khwai area seldom fails to deliver some very impressive wildlife spectacles when visited in the dry season. This is perhaps to be expected, as it marks the boundary of the Okavango's waters that flow east and north – and so is the closest drinking water for large numbers of thirsty animals in southern Chobe during the late dry season.

Of particular note here are the lion prides. In 1999 one was so large that it had started taking down small elephants – a practice which visibly worried the area's large elephant herds.

I've had some particularly good leopard sightings here, seeing the cats lounging around in shady trees during the day, usually on the edge of the riverine forest. Mixed areas of broken woodlands and open areas is classic leopard territory, and because it's been protected for so long, many of the residents are very relaxed in the presence of game-viewing vehicles.

At Khwai you probably have a better chance than in most places of seeing the normally elusive roan antelope, which come down to the river to drink regularly.

Birdlife


Khwai's birdlife is varied, like the habitats found here, though with only a narrow channel of water in the dry season, you'll usually have to search elsewhere for large numbers of the more aquatic species. That said, even in the dry season you will find storks (saddle-billed and marabou) and wattled cranes pacing around the open areas in search of fish, frogs and reptiles to eat.

Khwai does have a reputation, especially towards the end of the dry season, for having a very high density of raptors – with which I can concur. I've been closer to a martial eagle here than anywhere else, had a lovely sighing of a marsh harrier hunting, and both bateleur eagles and giant eagle owls seem particularly common. So as you drive along, keep glancing into the sky and checking the tops of trees for the distinctive outline of a perched raptor.


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