Out here, things rarely happen on our schedule. You can spend hours waiting at a den or following faint leopard tracks that vanish into thin air. Sometimes nothing shows itself. Other times, everything happens at once: the bush erupts with action and chaos, or the leopard steps silently onto the road ahead.
Ximungwe Female walking away down the road.
The bush teaches us that patience is not wasted time. It’s the price of being present when nature decides to reveal something.
Tracking: A Slow Conversation
Walking behind a tracker, the first thing you notice is the rhythm. He doesn’t rush. He pauses at each bend, crouches low, and studies a bent blade of grass. The air is still cool, carrying the faint smell of wild sage crushed underfoot. Each step feels like a quiet question asked of the land.
Science tells us predators move mostly in the cool hours. A leopard might cover kilometres without sound, leaving only a faint track or the brush of a tail in the dust. To follow this, you need patience. The reward is not only a sighting, it’s learning to sync your pace with the bush.
Recently, Tracker Ray and I followed the tracks of a female leopard for the whole morning, then again in the afternoon. Twisting and turning back on themselves, tracks on top of our tracks. We were so close, but still with nothing to show for it. We never saw her. Frustrated, we headed back to camp for the night. The next morning, we headed straight down to the same area, except in search of lions this time, and there, right where we had been the day before: the Nkoveni Female lying on the road. Because we’d put in the work, we were in the right area, at the right time, right when nature wanted it to happen.
Waiting at the Den
Leopard dens are the epitome of a lesson in stillness. You sit quietly, engine off, the air buzzing with tension. Dust hangs in the shafts of sunlight, and a faint smell of baked earth drifts up from the earth. At first, nothing moves. Then, after twenty minutes, an ear flicks. Soon, a cub edges out, eyes adjusting to the glare. Softly called by its mother only meters from you, invisible in the long grass.
Leave too early and you’d have missed it. Leopards remind us: patience is often the only key to the door.
There’s a deeper rhythm here. Termite mounds take decades to rise. Rivers shift shape flood by flood. Leadwood trees outlast centuries. By waiting, even for a few minutes, we connect to the slower timescale that life here follows.
The leadwood forest on the morning I decided to walk through it barefoot
Science of Slowness
Predators are masters of patience. Lions may lie flat for hours, not out of laziness (mostly), but for efficiency. A failed chase drains vital reserves. Waiting until the wind shifts or prey moves closer gives them an edge.
Humans once lived like this, too. Hunter-gatherers would sit at waterholes, silent for days, waiting. Modern life has numbed that skill, but the instinct lingers. Watching lions bide their time is a reminder: survival has always been about waiting.
Patience in the bush isn’t passive. It’s alert. You’re listening for the francolin’s alarm call, or noticing the sudden silence of weavers in a tree. You’re watching impalas bunch together, the twitch of their tails. The story is there—but only if you give it time to be told.
And maybe that’s the real gift. In slowing down, we feel closer to the land, to the animals, even to each other. The world beyond often demands speed—deadlines, instant results, constant movement. But out here, the land whispers another truth: life unfolds when it’s ready.
The best moments don’t run on our clock. All we can do is be present, patient, and ready when they arrive
How right you are Keagan. Patience is often very rewarding. The most incredible sights can happen when one is patient enough to just wait that bit longer. Of course, sometimes it can also be a bit frustrating…
This is so true. in Kenya I missed seeing a leopard mother moving its cub, because a couple of people in the same vehicle as me were getting impatient and I didn’t want my guide getting into trouble, so we went away to see some other animals and when we came back the leopard and her two cubs were gone. I was devastated, because I really wanted te see that leopard moving its cubs. I promised myself to never let that happen again.
Your last paragraph says it all !
Hi Keagan, your story is absolutely true and it has been proven over and over that patience is the key word in the bush. Sitting still and keeping your ears and eyes open is the second most important part of being in the bush. Respect the bush and you will be rewarded with the most amazing animals.
Thank you for this beautiful post!
How true your words are…
Wise words beautifully stated. Thank you…May we slow down enough to behold the story waiting to unfold. I loved this post!
There were messages within your post that were exactly what I needed to hear at this time. I needed a reminder to have more patience, and that patience is just as much a part of the process as “the hunt”. Thank you for sharing this perspective.
Even by your exemplary standards that photo of the Ximungwe Female walking away perfectly expressed the haunting beauty and mystery of those wonderful cats. Thank you.
Thank you for the article, Keagan Chasenski. I liked how you connected patience in the wild with patience in our daily lives, as waiting for the right moment shows that nature always chooses its own timing, and that’s a profound lesson for us.