Alice: the South Luangwa leopard

That, creeping out of the bush, is Alice. She’s a smart kitty. James, our guide from Mfuwe Lodge in Zambia’s South Luangwa, explains that she hunts during the day, unusual for leopards who generally prefer the cover of darkness when they can also take advantage of their superior eyesight. When our two vehicles came upon her she started stalking a small herd of Impala on the other side of the track, as if she had been waiting for us to create a distraction: “Where’ve you lot been? These impala aren’t gonna hang around all day.”

From then on it was her show. She stalked upwind, streaming ever so silently through dense bushes. When the impala changed position, she changed tack, retracing her steps to take advantage of our vehicles for cover, sliding between us to move further upwind. She disappeared in dense bush, in for the long hunt. Fallible human stomachs got the better of us and we gave in to what turned out to be the world’s best bush breakfast. Returning later we found no sign of her but we imagined her sharing a tree with an impala.

James did find her son, however, exposed on a plain just after he scattered a herd of puku. The juvenile couldn’t close the gap on any of the creatures and they danced circles around him, prancing stiff-legged and landing back on the ground with warning thuds, all the while taunting him with a series of guttural squeaks. As he turned this way and that, baboons barked at him from the cheap seats in the trees and a hyena dropped by for a laugh. More time with mum needed, son.