Malawi: Leopard and more

Update from our Malawi expedition volunteering with elephants, hippo, cats, pangolins and African biodiversity

Vwaza continues to deliver amazing flora and fauna, with some great results on our second round of camera trap checks.

We have now finished collecting data and we are working through the collation of our bird and hippo transects, elephant spotting, elephant ID and dung analysis.

This year we have updated a number of our elephant profiles and added a few new ones.

Expditioner Rita is putting together an excellent photographic bird guide, which will be avaiable for future expeditions.

We’ve selected the best of our camera trap photos to share with you, including, mongoose, civet, hippos, hyena and best of all, leopard (the photo is of us discovering the image whilst going through the camera trap results). That particular shot was caught last night, about 4 km from our camp. There’s also a curious and very unusual procession of no fewer than three honey badgers.

Camp life goes on and Luka, our chef, aided by Kumbu from the local village, keeps on delivering amazing dishes that receive nothing but rave reviews from our expeditioners.

Tomorrow we say farewell to Vwaza and begin our journey back to Lilongwe.

Thank you to our expeditioners – this would not happen without you. And thank you also to our local partner LWT and their staff who have taught us much and looked after us well. We hope we returned the favour with good data.

This is an update from our annual Malawi volunteer expedition. Join us next year as a citizen scientist!