A leopard in a Mashatu tree. These majestic trees, aka Nyalaberry trees, are prolific in Botswana’s Northern Tuli reserve, and give their name to Mashatu game reserve, part of Northern Tuli. The trees have become known as Mashatu trees because rock pythons can sometimes to be found coiled up in the cradling arms of their spreading and shade-giving branches. The word ‘mashatu’ means ‘mother of the rock python’.

These same curvaceous boughs also provide support for resting leopards through the building heat of early summer. Look, there’s a fat paw draped languorously over a branch, and there’s a twitching, white-tipped tail, and just there, two glinting eyes are drilling down into us as we peer upwards, simultaneously reaching for our cameras.

A leopard in a Mashatu tree. Not one in the end, but two. Iconic sightings that started – and finished – our recent short visit to this 72,000 hectare wilderness.

A trip neatly bookended by leopard sightings seems ‘spot on’ for a reserve where leopard encounters are frequent, and it was certainly a good opener for a photographic location we’ll be using for safaris from early November next year.  

But it’s not just the good chance of leopards that attracted us to Mashatu as a new location for our wildlife photo trips. The reserve’s plentiful open spaces, perfect for off-roading, afford excellent uncluttered backdrops against which to frame the abundant wildlife or follow the plentiful action as it kicks off.

We locked eyes on our first leopard, a female, soon after arriving. We didn’t want to drag ourselves away from this treasure, but our guide wisely suggested we check on some lions they’d been watching that morning; assuring us we would come back later. When we did, however, she’d already come down the tree. We stared up at the branch she’d vacated; imagining the never-to-be shots of her effortlessly coming down and leaping to the ground. But before we’d time to really register our disappointment our guide was grabbing the wheel frantically. ‘She’s mobile. In the riverbed. There!’

For the next half an hour we watched and photographed her on patrol in that dry, dry riverbed.  It was a bit disconcerting at first when she almost disappeared completely from view down a deep hollow to drink in a small pool; one of the few remaining sources of water.  It seemed an age before her head popped up again, but it proved just enough time for the light to turn golden in readiness for our photography session with her. She certainly had us spellbound as she moved silkily along the rocky scar of the river, hugging the bank, her colour popping brilliantly against the deep shadows between exposed tree roots and rocks. She had us totally bewitched.

… She stops, watching a distant group of impala intently; stealthily cutting the distance between them and her. But the birds’ shrill alarm-calls give her away and the impala quickly flee from the riverbed, uncertain where danger is coming from. No need to skulk in the shadows now, she walks out boldly towards us, straight into the middle of the dry river, into the monochromatic rocky terrain and ashen-coloured shadows, exactly where we want her…

Such a welcome to Mashatu, and the wonderfully stately trees with which it shares a name, simply served to whet our appetites for more. What would the second morning bring?

As it turned out, another leopard in a Mashatu tree. This time a male with an impala kill. He was close enough, and low down enough to photograph well, if the shots our fellow guests showed us later at brunch were anything to go by. But we were not on game drive that morning. Instead we were headed for Mashatu’s famous low-level hide.

In an arid place like Mashatu, at the end of the long dry, the constant flow of varied and numerous subjects coming to drink from the life-sustaining water at this hide – the site of several award-winning images – is a real spectacle. It seems as if all life is here – and almost within touching distance.

The comfortable hide’s wide perspective on the scene, coupled with that extremely low angle, meant everything was set fair for us to capture a range of dynamic shots; creative and conventional including behaviour, backlit, frontlit, action, reflections – take your pick.

The cast list over two mornings in the hide was a long one – herds of impala were dwarfed by the giant eland antelope that came in regularly, some with very recent young in tow. Boisterous baboon troops hung around the waterhole to groom and play and drink and groom and play some more; hundreds of guinea fowl frilled the edges of the water; a ‘business’ of banded mongoose stopped, by sneaking a drink from the under the noses of the larger mammals, their alpha female clearly pregnant; several cheeky go-away birds, Mohican crests fanned out, flew in to drink right by the hide’s camera ports.  

There were timid giraffe, bar-coded zebra, a crafty tree squirrel that almost escaped our attention, the odd sounder or two of warthogs and last but not least there were the massive, mammoth-footed elephants. They looked monumental from that low angle, if somewhat skinny at the end of such a long dry spell; their huge toes were right under our noses as they drank – we were that close, struggling to squeeze them into the frame even with wide lenses…

…Dust and drinking, dust and drinking. Heat, dust and drinking. The water a magnet – a lifeline. We taste and smell the dust as we photograph. We smell the elephants, the water. We hear the shrieking calls of the go-away birds imploring us to leave. But we don’t want to. All our senses are engaged. The only catch – where to point our cameras next?…

So many animals. But despite the thrill of seeing and photographing the elephants so close it was the clouds of tiny redbilled queleas filling our viewfinders that captured our imaginations most. There were tens of thousands of these tiny birds, clouds of them, pressed and piled together around the drinking edge as they struggled to quickly dip a beak and soak feathers before flying off. They took off as if one being and each time it was as if a thick curtain, masking everything behind, was suddenly lifted, revealing the layers of thirsty wildlife behind. Wingbeats, whooshing and water droplets. Capturing this repeated eruption of soaring tiny birds seemed an impossible, yet compelling task.

We were kept busy on game drives too and were particularly thrilled one evening to find a couple of brown hyena, not an easy species to see, leaving their den to go on nightly patrol.  Witnessing a cheetah playing football with dried elephant dung while her five, almost fully-grown cubs watched from the sidelines was another highlight. Before we pitched up on Mashatu this cat family had entertained guests for several days, but as soon as we spotted them she unobligingly led them off onto a neighbouring reserve.  We didn’t see them again, but the Northern Tuli was kind to us and a few days later we were lucky enough to photograph another cheetah family; this time a mother with three younger cubs. They’d just brought down a large impala ram and we watched them feed greedily in golden light; the youngsters’ keen, furry faces rimmed with bright red.

On our final morning on we stopped for coffee at a particularly striking Mashatu tree. We all agreed it was the perfect place as we jumped down and our guide and tracker grappled with the picnic box. It was the perfect place until we suddenly started getting a distinct waft of rotting flesh. The unpleasant aroma was faint at first; perhaps masked by the scent of the tree’s new flowers. Our concerned guide quickly checked around again to make doubly sure the coast was clear. ‘Whoa. There’s a leopard! Straight above us.’

We all piled back into the vehicle, pegging our noses with our fingers. She wasn’t easy to pick out until you knew where to look, but there she was, intently watching us from her high vantage point and hiding place. Lower down the tree, wedged between a branch and the trunk, she’d stashed the remains of an impala – the source of that distinctive aroma.

‘Let’s look for another spot,’ suggested our guide, clearing his throat and reversing out from directly under the branches where she was hidden.

‘Well, I did tell you we see leopard on most of our drives,’ he grinned.