Safari Swing 2026 took place at a game lodge in Pilanesberg National Park in South Africa. All the attendees danced West Coast Swing, but the primary focus was the animals, not the dancing. I went, wildlife lens and binoculars in hand. We were divided into groups of six for game drives, and each group kept the same jeep for the week.
“Cats in Trees!” was the rallying cry of our jeep.
Every morning, we’d pile in as a group, groggy, barely caffeinated, and ready for another attempt to see elusive arboreal felines - specifically, leopards, but we’d settle for lions if someone twisted our collective arms.
We’d chant “Cats in Trees! Cats in Trees! Cats in Trees!” as we left the lodge, and then settle in for a long drive of everything but. We’d see birds, impalas, and wildebeests in droves. We’d see rhinos and giraffes and elephants all over. We even wound up hanging out near a pride of lions, and watched a cheetah make a kill in the distance. But never a cat in a tree.
Every afternoon, we’d do the same, hoping this time we’d be able to live up to the chant. We’d return after dark, cold and hungry, wondering if we should be lowering the bar to just “Cats! Cats! Cats!”
Maybe we put too much pressure on it. There’s always next year.
We didn’t see Cats in Trees, but here are some other things we did see. I’ll include three photos from each category, to keep length reasonable.
Cats on the Ground
We did have two lion encounters, one up close and one at binocular distance. We also saw a cheetah make a kill, but too far away to photograph.
Oh, yeah, the entire jeep saw a leopard at a distance. Not me, though. Shucks.
Non-Cats in Trees
I caught a couple of nice shots of non-cats on trees, similar to [but also very different from] what we wanted to see a cat doing.
Non-Cats on Non-Cats
It turns out that sometimes you see animals sitting on other animals. We had a bunch of birds-on-animals encounters, as the birds were feeding on ticks from their hosts.
Oh, and there were sometimes people on vehicles.
Non-Cats on the Ground
We saw a lot of other animals on the ground. Eventually, we barely even stopped for them. It’s weird how you stop appreciating the beauty of the safari after a few days - on day one, you stop for everything; by day three you’re zipping past rhinos on the way to a potential cat sighting, completely apathetic to how cool they look.
Mostly Ground, but also Trees and Cats and Non-Cats
Pilanesberg sits inside a long-dormant volcanic crater, with rolling hills surrounding the rim. I loved taking landscape shots, especially those with a Rückenfigur (back-turned figure) like Caspar David Friedrich used to paint.
These photos were a selection of my favorites from Safari Swing. I may come back to this event in the future if I find the time, as I have dozens more photos worth sharing.
Next time, though: Cats in Trees.