Moremi
Stay & safaris
When to go
Wildlife & experiences
Areas of the reserve
Planning your trip
Booking with us
Moremi
wildlife
Wild dog country of the first rank, big cats between water and woodland — and a straight answer on the Big Five.
Two worlds, one cast.
Moremi's wildlife is what happens when permanent water meets dry land — and neither gives way. On the flooded side, red lechwe graze in their thousands, sitatunga slip through the papyrus, and hippo hold the lagoons; on the dry side, elephant and buffalo work the mopane woodland and the cats hunt ground as rich as any in Botswana. Because the reserve spans both worlds at once, the game viewing runs deeper than either would alone. Four of the Big Five are here in strength — lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo. The fifth is not: after the poaching years, Botswana moved its remaining Delta rhino to guarded sanctuaries, and Moremi is not a place to come for rhino. We would rather tell you that plainly than sell you five. What Moremi holds instead is scarcer than a rhino: this is wild dog country of the first rank, where sightings are as dependable as anywhere on the continent. The rest of the cast runs from lechwe splashing across flooded grass to a fishing owl found in few other places on earth.
Who holds which world.
The Big Five first — the four of them that are here — then the wider cast, water side and land side.
Lion
The reserve's apex resident — strongest on the game-dense ground around Chief's Island and the Khwai floodplains.
Leopard
At home in the riverine forest — the Xakanaxa woodlands are classic leopard country, worked tree line by tree line.
Elephant
Herds move between mopane woodland and permanent water the whole year round; nearly every stay here meets them.
Cape buffalo
Big herds along the floodplain fringes, old bulls holding the mopane shade.
Wild dog
The reserve's signature — packs den and hunt across Moremi and Khwai, on ground where sightings are as dependable as anywhere in Africa.
The wild dog guidePel's fishing owl
The great rufous owl of the night waterways — the Khwai and Xakanaxa channels are among the world's best places to find it.
Red lechwe
The floodplain antelope in its thousands — splashing herds that define the water side of the reserve.
Hippo
Packed into the lagoons and channels; the voice of the waterways after dark.
Spotted hyena
A power in its own right here — clans that hunt as often as they scavenge, never far from the night sounds of camp.
Nile crocodile
Old and patient in the deeper channels and the lagoon mouths.
Sitatunga
The shyest antelope in the papyrus — splayed hooves for the floating beds, seen by the quiet and the lucky.
Cheetah
The open-ground specialist, on ground that mostly isn't — present, and scarce.
NoteA bonus, never a plan — the wooded, watered country is not theirs.
Giraffe
Steady company in the open woodland — the tallest thing on the Mopane Tongue's skyline.
Plains zebra
Mixed herds with wildebeest and tsessebe wherever the grassland opens.
Tsessebe
Quick and alert on the short floodplain grass — the antelope the predators test first.
Greater kudu
Spiral horns in the mopane and along the woodland edges, most often at dawn.
Painted dogs first, then the cats.
Most reserves lead their predator story with lion. Moremi has earned a different opening: northern Botswana holds one of the continent's strongest wild dog populations, and this reserve with the Khwai country beside it is its proving ground — packs denning, hunting and crossing the floodplains on ground open enough to follow them. The cats are the second act only by billing: lion pride country runs from Chief's Island to the Khwai floodplain, leopard work the Xakanaxa riverine forest tree line by tree line, and spotted hyena clans hunt here as often as they scavenge. Cheetah are the honest exception — present, and scarce on this wooded, watered ground.
Which pack, which pride, and the story of how the dogs came to hold this corner of Africa run deeper than a summary can go. Which months put the packs and the prides in front of you most often is a question of timing.
The flood writes the seating plan.
The reserve's defining fact arrives from a thousand kilometres away: the annual flood of the Okavango Delta, which rises through the dry winter months just as the last rainwater pans are failing. The result is the most productive line in Botswana — permanent water on one side, drying land on the other — and Moremi is drawn along it. As the country dries from June, elephant, buffalo and the plains game pull in toward the channels and lagoons; the lechwe and the waterbirds hold the flooded grass; and the predators follow everything else. The Mopane Tongue is the reserve's dry spine, the Khwai and Xakanaxa waterlines its edges, and the game moves between them on a calendar older than the reserve itself.
How that calendar falls month by month, and which weeks put the most game at the water, is a question of timing rather than of place.
Five hundred species, one to plan around.
More than five hundred species of bird have been recorded here, and the number understates the experience: this is one of southern Africa's great birding grounds because the two worlds double the habitats. The Xakanaxa lagoons carry heronries that fill with breeding colonies when the water suits them; wattled crane stalk the flooded margins; slaty egret — one of Africa's rarest — hunts the shallows; and the dry-country woodland adds its rollers, hornbills and raptors to the count. The bird most worth planning around is the one you hear before you see: Pel's fishing owl, the great rufous owl of the night waterways, and the Khwai and Xakanaxa channels are among the world's best places to find it.
How you bird here matters as much as what you see. The heronries are reached by boat, the channels by mokoro at water level, and the woodland birds on foot with a guide who knows the calls.
Which corner, which season.
The cast is not spread evenly, and knowing the broad shape saves a mis-booked trip. The Khwai country in the north-east carries the heaviest predator traffic; Xakanaxa is lagoon country — leopard in the riverine, herons on the water, game drives and boats from the same ground; Chief's Island holds the deep interior's richest big game, reached by air; and the Mopane Tongue is the classic dry-land drive between them. Broadly: the dry months from June to October concentrate the game at permanent water and make every sector stronger, while the green season turns the reserve over to the birds, the calving and the storm light.
Choosing between those corners, and pinning the month, are decisions worth making slowly — and each has a proper answer of its own.
Now plan it, one decision at a time.
Put the animals at the centre of the trip.
Browse the camps and lodges, or a ready-made journey, and shape it around the wildlife you're after — or tell us which animals matter most to you, and we'll build the journey around them.