Eight Leopards in Six Nights

I've been to Africa quite a few times by now. Three times this year alone. And yet, for some reason, the leopard has always managed to elude me.

Sure, I've seen leopards before. Usually somewhere in the distance, or perhaps a glimpse of one disappearing into the bush. Sometimes just its backside for half a second before it was gone.

Not exactly the kind of encounter you dream about as a wildlife photographer.

In August, I was back at Zimanga in South Africa. We knew there was a leopard around, and on our first day we actually spotted it from quite a distance. During the following days, we spent a fair amount of time trying to find her again.

Some of the others in the group managed to see her, but I never really got lucky.

At one point, we were incredibly close. We found an impala she had killed, hidden away in the thicket. We could even smell her. For those who haven't heard this before, leopard scent markings have a rather distinctive smell, often compared to buttered popcorn. So if you're walking through the African bush and suddenly smell popcorn, there might be a leopard somewhere nearby.

At Zimanga, some of the animals also have tracking devices, so the guides can use a receiver to pick up their location. We had the signal. We had the kill. We had the smell.

We just couldn't get a proper look at the leopard.

And this has been a recurring theme for me in Africa.

On one trip to Mana Pools, we arrived at camp and the guide casually mentioned that the previous day they'd had a leopard sitting in a tree with a kill, just outside the camp.

Yesterday. Of course.

So when I started hearing about Chikunto, a lodge in Zambia's South Luangwa National Park, I became rather interested.

South Luangwa has a reputation as one of Africa's great leopard destinations, and the area around Chikunto was supposedly particularly good.

I've also been considering a trip to Sabi Sands in South Africa for quite some time. That's another destination famous for its leopards, and there's an ongoing debate among people who know these places well about which offers the best sightings.

I haven't been to Sabi Sands yet, so I'm certainly not going to declare a winner.

But I wanted to give South Luangwa a try.

Despite its reputation, I deliberately kept my expectations fairly low. I'd heard about fantastic leopard sightings before, and somehow I always seemed to arrive just after the leopard had left.

Our first evening at Chikunto started like most game drives. We drove around, photographed whatever wildlife presented itself, and eventually continued into the night.

I don't remember anything particularly remarkable from the beginning of that drive.

But towards the end, just as we were getting ready to head back, we noticed a hyena lying beneath a large tree.

We drove over to take a closer look.

The lights went up into the branches.

And there it was.

A leopard, sitting in the tree with an impala it had killed.

On our very first evening.

After all those previous trips, all those missed opportunities, and all those occasions when somebody told me about the fantastic leopard they'd seen yesterday, there was finally one right in front of me.

I got some photographs. Not particularly great photographs, if I'm being critical, but I finally had a proper leopard encounter.

And that turned out to be just the beginning.

During our six nights at Chikunto, we saw leopards on pretty much every game drive. Not necessarily great photographic opportunities every time, but actual leopard sightings. Again and again.

And it wasn't just during the game drives.

One morning, the staff spotted a leopard with a kill barely 100 metres from camp, just outside one of the villas. The following day, there was a leopard lying in the large tree next to where we parked the Land Rovers.

After years of almost seeing leopards, I now had them practically in the car park.

By the end of the trip, we'd encountered eight different individuals.

Eight!

Considering my previous luck with leopards, it was almost ridiculous.

And something rather funny happened along the way.

At first, I was simply delighted to see a leopard. It didn't really matter what it was doing, where it was sitting, or whether the light was particularly good.

There it was. A leopard. Fantastic!

But after you've seen a few, your expectations start changing.

Suddenly, just seeing a leopard isn't quite enough anymore. You want a better angle, a cleaner background, more interesting behaviour, preferably some beautiful light.

You start thinking less about the fact that there's a leopard in front of you and more about whether it's going to make a really good photograph.

It's quite remarkable how quickly we wildlife photographers can become spoiled.

One evening, we even encountered two leopards mating.

That's something you certainly can't expect to experience on an ordinary safari. Leopard sightings might be relatively common in certain areas, but witnessing mating behaviour is a different matter.

And here we were, during a stay of just six nights, watching something I would have been thrilled to witness even once in a lifetime.

I came away from South Luangwa with a completely different collection of leopard photographs than I had ever managed before.

And perhaps an even greater appreciation for how much the location matters when you're trying to photograph a particular species.

Does that mean South Luangwa is better than Sabi Sands? I have no idea. I'll need to visit Sabi Sands before I can have an informed opinion about that.

But I certainly understand why South Luangwa has the reputation it does.

I've been going through the photographs since returning home, and I think I might actually use that first leopard, the one in the tree with the impala, as the cover image for this article.

It's not my best photograph from the trip.

Not even close.

But after years of almost seeing leopards, that particular photograph means quite a lot to me.

And I still find it rather amusing that by the end of the same week, I had become picky about photographing them.

I'm heading back to Chikunto and South Luangwa first week of october 2028 - if you wanna join me and photograph leopards check out FocusRaw South Luangwa 2028 photo tour.