The man in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner walked on and turned no more his head/ Because he knows a fearful fiend doth close behind him tread. It’s said that Shelley fainted clean away on reading those lines. But the pukus of the Luangwa Valley in Zambia are made of sterner stuff.

Pukus are medium-sized antelopes, foxy red, the male proudly horned. And there was a female who strongly suspected that there was a fearful fiend just a few yards away, hidden in the darkness. But she didn’t flee, nor did she walk on pretending it wasn’t there. She went in for a good look and a good sniff.

I was in a position of perfect privilege, because we all – all of us in the vehicle – knew there was a leopard lying on the ground in the deeper darkness of a hollow. We also knew that leopards love to dine on sweet puku flesh. We had found the leopard in the spotlight but switched it off at once, not wishing to interfere in any drama between predator and prey. We sat in the dark, silent, neutral, enthralled.

Sometimes looking at wildlife is like attending a sporting event. We could see the puku approaching tentatively, operating on the policy that it’s better to know your enemy than stand about feeling uneasy. The leopard knew the puku was there; the puku only suspected the leopard. The distance between them grew less. Look out!

Should I cheer for the leopard? Or the puku? Wait, I found myself radioing to the leopard. Wait, wait for it. She’s still too far off. Wait just 10, 20 seconds. The puku froze, listening, smelling, seeing as much as she could in the blackness. The leopard was locked onto to her, a spotted puku-seeking missile hidden in the darkness and the folds of the land.

Wait leopard, wait, hold your nerve – and then all at once there was the leopard barrelling over the broken ground and there was the puku, fleeing from a known enemy — and with a start of maybe ten yards she was unbeatable and therefore uneatable. Most leopard hunts end like that. Leopard, dearest, you should have listened.      .

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