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JPK,
Have been reading "Months of the Sun" lately.
Ian hunted the Nyakasanga area quit a bit and noted the large flood swamps adjacent to the Zambezi.
Did you see any sign of these old flood swamps (old, due to the fact the river floods little now with the Dam.).
OZ

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Oz,

I would say yes and no. Most terrain has some elevation and these were either mopani, srubby, topped off mopani or jess - or souteast of the security road that runs from Route 12(?), the tar road to Zambia, northeast through Nyakasanga and Mana Pools, Sapi through Chewore... in the hills. Only the tremendous number of pans with their grey clay soil point to the old flood swamps and the different types of soil some areas had too from very fetile looking black soil to typical red dirt to sand to sandy clay. Without the past floods I don't think the pans or the different soil types would be there.

Also, large areas of both open plains and tighter bush along the Zambezi, even relatively elevated areas, had the moonscape and foot deep+ cratering that eles leave when they walk on soft, thouroughly saturated ground that then drys. This was especially prevelent at open plains along the Zambezi southwest of the Rukumetchie River and around the Sugar Estates areas further southwest.

The riverine bush along many of the rivers, especially the Rukumetchie and Nyakasanga must have been similar to what Nychens experienced. Here the riverine bush was very dense and the footing soft, still wet clay with softer bogs and even pools when we first arrived, noticably drying during the hunt. But even at the end of our hunt the ground was moist and it was very humid in the riverine bush.

The Jess Nychens writes about is till there, that for sure!

JPK

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