In my last blog I have provided some feel for the Makgadikgadi salt pans, its beauty and unique, natural habitat. Today let’s talk about one of the ‘main attractions’ of the salt pans surrounding the Park – The meerkats!
They are small carnivore belonging to the mongoose family inhabiting all parts of the Kalahari in Botswana. Meerkats are also known as suricate and besides Kalahari, can be found in Namibia, SW Angola and South Africa. They were one of my ‘target species’ during this visit to Makgadikgadi.
I have read quite a lot about habituated meerkats around the Jacks Camp in Makgadikgadi ecosystem prior to this trip. However, I didn’t have set expectations, knowing how it all changes in nature everyday. What I, and the group of photographers I was guiding, seen and experienced during our visits to meerkat colonies was simply amazing and exceeded all my expectations…that I really didn’t have 😃
We visited two different gangs – one with 9 individuals (adults and pretty grown up juveniles) and the second one with six adults and two, small, 4 weeks old babies. The visit were accompanied and supervised by a dedicated care taker for each family. We were able to get out of the vehicle and instructed on how close we can approach. Of course, as on all my safaris, I am observing carefully animals and develop understanding of the safe/comfortable distance…here, the comfort distance sometimes meant 1 centimeter.
Meerkats definitely learned how to take advantage of visiting humans. They feel more comfortable in our company as jackals and other possible predators avoid the area. We have also learned, that on the flat pans raised head of photographer is the best scouting point. Moreover, sitting and lying down human bodies also provide an excellent playground after 1-2 hrs of foraging 😃 (photo of a meerkat on my head is courtesy of Tomek Szpila)
Photographing meerkats seems relatively easy, but it is actually quite difficult task because of their constant movement. Opportunities for wide angle and long range photos can lead to quite chaotic behavior – yes, photographer not the meerkat. It is not that easy to be super calm and premeditated when you visit these creatures for the first time – I found myself changing cameras all the time. Only during the last visit, I decided to stick to pre-planned scenarios. However, more visits are required to master the meerkat photography 😁
During three visits (each of 3-4 hrs), we have have seen them waking up, cleaning their dens, foraging, playing around, teaching young ones how to behave outside of the den and more. Lying down, sitting or walking along meerkats on their quest for juicy scorpions or beetles, I felt as a part of a meerkat gang. Very special and incredibly gratifying experience.
Our next safari that will visit colonies of these fascinating creatures – 2022.
