A guide’s job is to help you understand what you are seeing in the wild, effectively telling you the story of the bush. 

When training to be a guide, a great technique to help you with taking a sighting is to look at a random photo that you have never seen before, and then interpret what you see, weaving it all into a story.

Here’s our attempt. If you fancy having a go we’d love to hear any of your thoughts.

Ahhh the waterbuck! Firstly, the setting of these waterbuck seeking shade in the dappled light under a forest of winterthorns in Zambia’s Lower Zambezi National Park, is, as with all settings in the bush, simply stunning.

Now then, let’s get the butt of all jokes (sorry) out of the way nice and early. In the bush there are a number of ‘jokes’ that are repeated more times than one would care to imagine. A particular eyebrow raiser would be a reference to the three black stripes on the rump of an impala symbolising the M for McDonalds (because they’re the fast food of the bush). Sigh...

With the poor waterbuck, the joke about the white ring on their behinds goes along the lines of ‘waterbuck were the first to use the loos on Noah’s Ark, before the paint had dried’, resulting in a perfect loo-seat white outline on their bums. The poor waterbuck hasn’t been able to shake this one.

Sadly, for the beautiful waterbuck, the shaming doesn’t end there. If you look carefully you will notice that they have much longer fur than you would expect. Indeed, they have much longer fur than almost all other antelope species in Africa. What this can lead to is a bit of a ‘wet-dog’ smell following them around. On top of this, waterbuck exude an oily substance to protect their skin when in contact with water, which also adds to their rather unpleasant odour.

As a result of their slightly smelly nature, you will often hear guides declaring that ‘a waterbuck’s meat is unpalatable to predators’ or ‘you will often notice predators avoiding waterbuck’.

Unfortunately for the waterbuck, this is complete codswallop! I have personally witnessed predators feeding on waterbuck many times. Indeed, for anyone that has had the pleasure of being downwind as lions feed on a week-old buffalo carcass, you will quickly realise that lions couldn’t give two hoots about the ‘quality’ of their meat.

All-in-all, waterbuck have it pretty tough.

PS. The white rings on their rump, along with the black markings on the rump of an impala, are a following mechanism the help the herd stick together when fleeing from predators!