May Magic
Wednesday, 25 May 2022
May Magic
Wednesday, 25 May 2022

Dear friends of Central African Wilderness Safaris,

We feel overwhelmed by the magical Liwonde landscapes we have to soak up – quite literally – this Africa Day, on May 25th 2022. While water levels have retreated just enough to allow us to cross over the Ntangai River and access the parks southern floodplains once again, delta-like scenes have mirrored Liwonde’s spectacular sunsets this month, providing magical scenes of liquid gold pans, scattered with elephants, antelope and, of course, a whole host of Liwonde’s incredibly diverse waterbirds – the pels fishing owl, saddle-bill storks and yellow-billed storks have been some highlights. Unusually high water levels for this time of year have treated our guests to a new kind of safari, one that allows us to slowly meander through floodplains clustered with aquatic plants enjoyed by elephants and waterbuck alike, soaking up reflections of the red-orange African sun mirrored all around.

Stories of Hope – Thriving Wildlife around Mvuu

Some particularly sweet encounters this month have been a family of side-striped jackals that have made Mvuu their home. The pups are super inquisitive, and guests have enjoyed close-up encounters by vehicle! Plus – such relaxed, resident wildlife makes for great photographic opportunities – this shot below might just be our favourite of the month, taken by our new intern Mark Timko!

The more elusive lions from earlier in the year – who teased most nights with rumbling roars heard almost every evening from guests in the comfort of their chalets – have been quite happy to introduce us to Mvuu’s two newest cubs. Watch this space for photo updates and reports on how these prides develop – exciting times as we get to observe some of the continent’s most successful conservation stories unfold right in front of us!

On the cheetah front – mum and two cubs, now four months old, have taken up residence near the airstrip just ten minutes from Mvuu, and we have enjoyed many relaxed sightings. There is something so very special about taking time to observe interactions between these two siblings, and with mum!

Perhaps one of the luckiest sightings of this month was spotted by David, whose guests enjoyed a full four minutes of a very relaxed black rhino amidst the Mopane. We are so lucky that we can now call the whole of Liwonde National Park a sanctuary for these prehistoric creatures. And how could we forget our exciting new wild dog population?! African wild dogs have the largest home-ranges of all mammals in Africa, which makes us even more delighted that they have settled and feel comfortable in the areas around Mvuu.

Mvuu Camp and Lodge Updates

May has been a month of exciting renovations! We are so pleased to have our lodge jetty back in action thanks to our hard-working and extremely efficient maintenance team, whose bush workshop has also undergone a thorough makeover and tidy up in time for the upcoming high season. We have welcomed two new ecotraining interns – Mark, who is helping out with guide training and sightings recordings, and Michele, who is learning the ropes of running a safari lodge nestled right in the wilderness over at Mvuu Lodge. On the guest front, the Mvuu team pulled out all the stops for a very special wedding vow renewal ceremony in the bush – dancing, singing and an unbeatable Liwonde sunset were enjoyed by all!

From our bush kitchen, guests have been enjoying plenty of fresh produce grown in our expanding veggie gardens. Constantly evolving, and very happy to have Wayne Range back on the team as our Food & Beverage manager, we’ve been seeing colourful, fresh and delicious dishes being produced over the past month.

Highlighting Help

It was a pleasure to host the Beit Trust’s annual meeting at Mvuu this year – after they were safely flown in by Halsted Aviation on the first charter flight in two years! The bush strip was in splendid shape thanks to African Parks. The Beit Trust mandate focuses exclusively on Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, and they work towards assisting in education through offering scholarships and teacher training, health through running clinics and providing medical equipment, welfare through creating care homes for the elderly and the environment through supporting conservation projects to protect endangered species. It was a perfect environment to host their annual meeting – our education centre offering a great work environment as well as immersion in the bush – much fun as well as hard work was enjoyed by all.

Global Big Birding Day 2022

With a special thanks to Samuel Chihana for his enthusiasm in getting Malawi involved in the 2022 Big Birding Day, this year our guides participated through logging each and every bird species, including the number of sightings per species, spotted on 14th May 2022. We are pleased that, even with limited WiFi accessibility in some of Malawi’s wildlife hotspots, Malawi finished in position 55, recording 63 species on the day. We look forward to building momentum for an even better result next year – after all, Liwonde hosts over 400 bird species alone!

Yendani bwino (go well),
The Central African Wilderness Safaris Team

Dear friends of Central African Wilderness Safaris,

We feel overwhelmed by the magical Liwonde landscapes we have to soak up – quite literally – this Africa Day, on May 25th 2022. While water levels have retreated just enough to allow us to cross over the Ntangai River and access the parks southern floodplains once again, delta-like scenes have mirrored Liwonde’s spectacular sunsets this month, providing magical scenes of liquid gold pans, scattered with elephants, antelope and, of course, a whole host of Liwonde’s incredibly diverse waterbirds – the pels fishing owl, saddle-bill storks and yellow-billed storks have been some highlights. Unusually high water levels for this time of year have treated our guests to a new kind of safari, one that allows us to slowly meander through floodplains clustered with aquatic plants enjoyed by elephants and waterbuck alike, soaking up reflections of the red-orange African sun mirrored all around.

Stories of Hope – Thriving Wildlife around Mvuu

Some particularly sweet encounters this month have been a family of side-striped jackals that have made Mvuu their home. The pups are super inquisitive, and guests have enjoyed close-up encounters by vehicle! Plus – such relaxed, resident wildlife makes for great photographic opportunities – this shot below might just be our favourite of the month, taken by our new intern Mark Timko!

The more elusive lions from earlier in the year – who teased most nights with rumbling roars heard almost every evening from guests in the comfort of their chalets – have been quite happy to introduce us to Mvuu’s two newest cubs. Watch this space for photo updates and reports on how these prides develop – exciting times as we get to observe some of the continent’s most successful conservation stories unfold right in front of us!

On the cheetah front – mum and two cubs, now four months old, have taken up residence near the airstrip just ten minutes from Mvuu, and we have enjoyed many relaxed sightings. There is something so very special about taking time to observe interactions between these two siblings, and with mum!

Perhaps one of the luckiest sightings of this month was spotted by David, whose guests enjoyed a full four minutes of a very relaxed black rhino amidst the Mopane. We are so lucky that we can now call the whole of Liwonde National Park a sanctuary for these prehistoric creatures. And how could we forget our exciting new wild dog population?! African wild dogs have the largest home-ranges of all mammals in Africa, which makes us even more delighted that they have settled and feel comfortable in the areas around Mvuu.

Mvuu Camp and Lodge Updates

May has been a month of exciting renovations! We are so pleased to have our lodge jetty back in action thanks to our hard-working and extremely efficient maintenance team, whose bush workshop has also undergone a thorough makeover and tidy up in time for the upcoming high season. We have welcomed two new ecotraining interns – Mark, who is helping out with guide training and sightings recordings, and Michele, who is learning the ropes of running a safari lodge nestled right in the wilderness over at Mvuu Lodge. On the guest front, the Mvuu team pulled out all the stops for a very special wedding vow renewal ceremony in the bush – dancing, singing and an unbeatable Liwonde sunset were enjoyed by all!

From our bush kitchen, guests have been enjoying plenty of fresh produce grown in our expanding veggie gardens. Constantly evolving, and very happy to have Wayne Range back on the team as our Food & Beverage manager, we’ve been seeing colourful, fresh and delicious dishes being produced over the past month.

Highlighting Help

It was a pleasure to host the Beit Trust’s annual meeting at Mvuu this year – after they were safely flown in by Halsted Aviation on the first charter flight in two years! The bush strip was in splendid shape thanks to African Parks. The Beit Trust mandate focuses exclusively on Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, and they work towards assisting in education through offering scholarships and teacher training, health through running clinics and providing medical equipment, welfare through creating care homes for the elderly and the environment through supporting conservation projects to protect endangered species. It was a perfect environment to host their annual meeting – our education centre offering a great work environment as well as immersion in the bush – much fun as well as hard work was enjoyed by all.

Global Big Birding Day 2022

With a special thanks to Samuel Chihana for his enthusiasm in getting Malawi involved in the 2022 Big Birding Day, this year our guides participated through logging each and every bird species, including the number of sightings per species, spotted on 14th May 2022. We are pleased that, even with limited WiFi accessibility in some of Malawi’s wildlife hotspots, Malawi finished in position 55, recording 63 species on the day. We look forward to building momentum for an even better result next year – after all, Liwonde hosts over 400 bird species alone!

Yendani bwino (go well),
The Central African Wilderness Safaris Team

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