Yip, yip, yip!
It was a jackal that announced my very first leopard sighting. Two jackals, to be precise. I was sitting in the darkness of Nyamandhlovu viewing platform in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe, watching the moonlit waterhole, when a slinky, feline silhouette approached to drink. Two smaller, dog-like silhouettes trotted close behind, as though playing grandmother’s footsteps. They yipped insistently as they tailed the big cat.
I was reminded of this incident last year during a night-drive in Tanzania’s Ruaha National Park. Rounding a bend, we met a large male lion, lying down and roaring into the darkness. Behind him stood a black-backed jackal (the same species I’d seen in Hwange), so close that it had to dodge the swishing tail. The proximity seemed suicidal. Was this some kind of dare? What if the lion turned around?