I wonder if a leopard ever gets fed up with being the terror of the bush. We were drawn towards them by the sound of alarming impalas: a curious sort of barking snort. And there they were, two of them, a mother and a cub of ten months in full daylight. Which is not their best time.

They weren’t hunting; they had just gone to a pool in an open area between stands of trees: just out for a quiet drink. But the impalas made it a noisy one: half-a-dozen of them kept an intensely close eye on the leopards, filling the air of the Luangwa Valley in Zambia with their din.

You could almost see the leopards saying oh shut up, give us a bit of peace, we’re not even interested in you impalas right now. But you could hardly blame the impalas for their concern.

There was no thought of actually hunting the impalas. No point either: it was daytime and they had been, as it were, spotted. A leopard needs to get very close indeed before it can launch a successful strike, and everybody knew that. That didn’t mean the impalas could relax.

The cub thought it was all great. He wasn’t big enough or smart enough to hunt for himself, but he really liked the idea of it. He watched the impalas with the intensity of a journalist at a major sporting event – and I should know, for I’ve been in that position myself enough times.

But the mother was blasé. She drank her fill – refreshing herself for the night’s hunting – and then walked away in that wonderful way that leopards walk. After a moment the cub reluctantly broke his gaze from the impalas and followed: two long graceful tails with that hint of a curl at the end. They were maybe 30 yards away from our vehicle, spotted coats shining in the sun.

Then the cub broke into a half-trot, caught up with his mother, rubbed his neck under her chin and received a loving bite on the neck. Even he knew that the odds would change as soon as darkness had fallen.

• I was travelling with Wildlife Worldwide. More trips https://wildlifeworldwide.cmail20.com/t/y-e-xididdd-thukydkiuh-r/