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Country:                              Botswana
Location:                             Okavango Delta
Reserve:                              Moremi Game Reserve
Camp:                                  Duba Plains

This picture shows a mother and her 2 offspring, freshly coated with mud, making their way up the gently sloping grassland away from the river. This floodplain stretches from the knee high grasses in the foreground to the far off horizon. Momma elephant is trying to decide if the camera is friend or foe, but both youngsters are showing us how tough they are. An elephant will often wave its trunk or hold it in the air as a warning of aggressive intent. However, when confronted by an elephant, the real danger signal is when she rolls the trunk up and tucks it under her chin. This is a signal that the elephant is preparing to charge.

The Okavango Delta is rightly considered one of the most incredible wildlife and wilderness sanctuaries in Africa. It is the largest inland delta system in the world, an area of about 6000 square miles, a mosaic of grasslands, floodplains, palm-tree islets, forests, lily lagoons and winding water channels, all combined into a perfectly constructed puzzle, in which animals wander as they please. The Kavango River, born in the uplands of Angola to the Northwest, flows into and fans out across the Kalahari Desert to form this immense inland delta. What makes this area most remarkable is that it is a wetland paradise located deep within the arid Kalahari Desert. The Okavango is Africa's largest and most beautiful oasis. The water of the Okavango literally floats on a saturated sea of sand.

Duba Plains is one of the Okavango Delta's most remote camps and is located in the furthermost reaches, north of the Moremi Wildlife Reserve. The camp is built on an island shaded by large ebony, fig and mangosteen trees and surrounded by expansive plains which are seasonally flooded.

Dereck and Beverly Joubert, the world renowned husband and wife wildlife documentary team, spent two years among the prides of lions and a large buffalo herds at Duba Plains Camp filming  Relentless Enemies: Lions and Buffalo, for National Geographic.

Photographed and Copyrighted ©2005 - 2011 All Right Reserved By: Harriet Smith

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