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Do you need a little quiet time during these holidays?

I’ve been finding it through some wildlife cams at waterholes in the Namib and Kalahari deserts.

It’s mostly plant eaters, but the highlights collection has some cat videos.

For instance (and to introduce you to the slow pace of these videos), here a jackal off screen in the Namib shouts out a warning:

The cams are in color during the day (and sunrises are gorgeous). Cats, however, are nocturnal and so we usually see the infrared views.

Here is one during the daytime. Those oryxes (a/k/a gemboks) usually monopolize access but not when a predator is there:

There are some videos of a cheetah family at the NamibiaCam YouTube page, along with one of a leopard.

I thought NamibiaCam captured an African wildcat drinking, but I don’t see the video.

Instead, here are Africam clips of wild cats throughout the continent:

What I find most relaxing is just watching animals on the live cam be themselves and move at their pace.

They come.

They drink (or try to, if the oryxes are around).

Perhaps they interact. Not too often, though — the animals usually are too busy drinking/keeping an eye out for danger.

Then they go — where?

Who knows. But that, very briefly, is the pace and the routine of Life itself.

In this hectic human world it is so relaxing to watch it play out naturally (and to know that my food is stockpiled and within handy reach — a/k/a the kitchen — and it’s very unlikely there will be a leopard or a cheetah around when I get thirsty).

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Some lagniappe:

An exceedingly rare feliform visits the Namibia waterhole:

I know; it’s hard to see.

Fortunately, the BBC got close views of one at another location:

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