Simon Barnes Author and Journalist

Sports and Wild Blog

Simon Barnes
  • Home
  • Biog
  • Blog
  • Books
  • Pictures
  • Contact
  • Twitter

Lee-opard

30 October 2019 by Simon Barnes 1 Comment

Sacred Combe Safari IV

Day 7

You travel hours and days to get here. You spend two weeks walking, sitting, driving, thinking, looking, listening. And sometimes the thing you came here for – the experience you had been seeking for months, for years, all your life – lasts for perhaps three seconds. Or less. When you tell the story later to your dear ones, it takes 100 times longer to say it than it did to feel it. And yet it’s perfect.

We were walking in North Luangwa National Park, and already a change has come over our guests. They had all found something bigger than the killer-shot, the close-up encounter, the rare sighting. The Valley had claimed them for its own, as it so often does. Now, as we walked, kept safe by the scout Davis Ng’uni, there was something rich to be found in very footfall.

The brief unseasonal rain had washed the air clean, knocked the dust from the sky and created long vistas of dazzling clarity, making every sense more engaged. And then Davis: “Lee-opard!” A fine three syllables that opened every eye to its fullest extent.

Movement. That’s what gives it away, always movement. 

I invariably walk at the back of the line, keeping the guests in pole position, better views, closer to our guide Brent Harrison. But even for those at the front, this was a fleeting moment: the leopard flowed down from the tree in the manner of a Slinky toy descending a staircase and vanished into the bush as smoothly as a stone skims across an icy pond.

And that was it. I have seen many leopards plain, for sustained periods of time, and many of these were less vivid than this tiny moment of vivid intimacy: the sensation of movement, the impossible flowing nature of the most elegant beast that has ever existed. I caught not a hint of colour, nor of the gorgeous pattern of the coat: it was just a shadow, frictionless, moving in a way that seemed beyond the limitations imposed by muscles and bones.

http://www.wildlifeworldwide.com/group-tours/sacred-combe-safari

Share this:

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Posted in Wildblog

Comments

  1. Anthony Bird says

    2 December 2019 at 3:47 pm

    Wow, Simon you have done it again, produced a picture which I will never see for myself but for which I am forever graceful!
    Thank you again,
    Anthony

    Reply

Please leave a comment Cancel reply

Receive Blog Updates By Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to my blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 5,416 other subscribers.

Recent Comments

  • Penny Woollams on Swift as a bow from an arrow…
  • Rob Howell on Swift as a bow from an arrow…
  • Jolyon Barton on Swift as a bow from an arrow…
  • Michael Clark on Cousin Caterpillar… one day he’ll wake with wings
  • Alan P on Swift as a bow from an arrow…

Categories

  • Myblog (7)
  • Sportsblog (7)
  • Wildblog (215)

Archives

  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • July 2018
  • May 2018
  • February 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • June 2017
  • April 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014

© Simon Barnes · info@simonbarnesauthor.co.uk
Home page photograph © David Bebber · Bird drawings © foxillustration.com
Created by Purple Hippo

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.