Sometimes, you don’t even have to leave your bed for a game sighting. Most of our lodges are located along the Limpopo riverbed, where enough wildlife pass by during the day and night. During the day, vervet monkeys and sometimes baboons pay the lodges a visit (remember to put your things away for safekeeping). At night, the local porcupines try (and sometimes succeed) to open the kitchen doors, foraging for something edible.
Of course, less obtrusive visitors like bird species, elephants in the riverbed, kudu in the distance and many more also pay the lodges a visit. But there is one species, the shy, unobtrusive bushbuck, that has become so habituated to us humans, that they are often found looking you up (and startling you) in your outside shower or while you’re sitting quietly outside near the boma. The only time a bushbuck will really scare the hell out of you, is when he makes his loud alarm call or bark, which is not at all fitting with its modest looks.
So, as bushbucks are abundant around the lodges, they are less so in the rest of Botswana, and we cherish their company, with the little munching noises and the crackling of leaves and branches. We also take the alarm call seriously when they bark. It is usually to warn each other of imminent danger, so it helps us be alert too!