Namibia/Botswana/Zambia 6

Tags

black-backed jackal, black-winged stilt, blacksmith lapwing, Blue crane, elephant, Etosha agama, European bee-eater, gemsbok, giraffe, hoopoe, Hyena, laughing dove, lilac-breasted roller, northern black korhaan, oryx, Ostrich, Pale chanting goshawk, pearl-spotted owlet, red-eyed bulbul, vulture, Wildebeest, zebra

After as early a breakfast as the hours of Mokuti Lodge would allow, we set off for the morning’s drive.

Very near the roadside and indignant at being disturbed.

Lilac-breasted roller. I seem to have taken a lot of photos of this species. They seem to be quite co-operative. And pretty.

?

?

Risking the slight irritation of my birdy companions, I asked if we could stop for a photo of these palms, which we had seen the day before without stopping. My companions were in fact quite pleased, in the event, since …

… they spotted in one of them what we would note at the of the day as a white-backed vulture.

?

Northern black korhaan. If I were to go by my bird book I would say it might be a White-quilled bustard but that is not on our checklist, and it has a different Latin name.

Blue crane

Black-winged stilt and very blurry ‘duck’. ?Teal?

We came across a lot of ostriches.

Many, many ostriches.

A male (black) and a female (brown)

To me they seem rather sinister when you can only see necks and legs

Strutting their stuff

Showing their irritation I think. We had hung around for a while.

We stopped for unexpected mid-morning hot drinks, prepared and served by our leaders.

Any stop provides an opportunity for looking out for birds.

African red-eyed bulbul

Someone said, rather patronisingly, that this bird was far too far off for me to be able to take with my small camera. Well, ya boo shucks! Pearl-spotted owl(et). Book says ‘appears dumpy, large-headed and short-tailed’. Yup!

Laughing dove. Soooo pretty!

And we continued on our way.

European bee-eater

How leader Neil managed as he was driving along to spot this motionless creature by the side of the road, so well camouflaged against its background, I couldn’t say. ‘Experience’, they said.

Etosha Agama (lizard)

Hoopoe

Pale chanting goshawk

We arrived at a waterhole, where we were to observe wildlife drama. Wildebeest and zebra were standing around, preparing to drink, but then along came an elephant troop.

A hyena sloped off.

Indeed, two elephant troops arrived – and merged.

To take over the pool entirely. I love the way giraffe’s heads show up against a treeline.

After drinking, mud baths are in order

A gemsbok/oryx arrived, but did not yet go near the pool.

Wildebeest hold back

As do giraffe. The bolder zebra were soon ‘discouraged’.

Two of which took it out on each other.

In due course the elephants did move off…

And the first to drink in the, by now very disturbed, waters were a black-backed jackal and a blacksmith lapwing.

It was time to return to the lodge for lunch and a siesta.

Namibia/Botswana/Zambia 3

Tags

black rhino, black-backed jackal, blacksmith lapwing, elephant, Etosha National Park, Etosha Pan, glossy starling, Halali camp, Hyena, Impala, kudu, laughing dove, Lion, marabou stork, Namibia, red hartebeest, rhino, Rock kestrel, Scops owl, secretary bird, Spotted hyena, Springbok, Striped mongoose, whydah, zebra

Monday, morning, 25th February. Here is a map of Etosha National Park. “>http://a href=”https://www.etoshanationalpark.org”><img src=”https://www.etoshanationalpark.org/media/Etosha-Map2.jpg” alt=”Etosha National Park Map” title=”Etosha National Park Map”/></a>

It’s huge. Etosha Pan itself is 75 miles/120 kilometres long. This is a dried up lake, the salt from which affects the land to its south. We had entered the NP by Anderson Gate, in the middle of the Park, and Halali Camp is a little over a third of the way along the Pan to the northwest of the Gate. The map shows the many waterholes.

After a very early breakfast, we went out for a ‘game’ drive. It was not quite as light as my camera made out to begin with.

Black-backed jackal

Our first lion, a female with a nasty but healing wound. She seems to have the remains of a kill.

Springbok and Striped Mongooses

Secretary bird, the last we were to see

Our first elephant, much further off than it appears from this maximum zoom photo

The Pan in the middle ground

Rock kestrel?. No, a lesser kestrel according to BL.

And then we heard a lion was on its way. Our leaders positioned the vehicles near the pool it was thought to be heading for.

What a handsome beast!

He roared for his females. It was loud! Nothing like the gentle huffing in the following video taken from a new spot we had moved to

He stopped, examined us …

… and then moved off. We did not see his females.

We continued on our way, and I’m starting to recognise a blacksmith lapwing.

What’s that venturing its head out of a (dried up of course) culvert?…

… A spotted hyena

Another black rhino – or rather two!

When we got back to Halali Camp, it was still relatively early, and we had a couple of hours off. The Camp had no free wifi, but our vehicles did, and I spent some time in one of them (as it was being driven to get fuel and then parked somewhere in the camp) catching up with vital home political news. (For those interested in such things, I learned that THAT vote, due already for the nth time on 27th February, was being put off again for two weeks.)

Before lunch, the group walked five minutes to the waterhole a few had visited the previous evening. En route we saw in the camp grounds, among other things, …

a Cape glossy starling (we were to see many varieties of beautiful starling in the two weeks),

and an African Scops owl, trying to sleep, a bit fed up with the attention. To quote from my bird book, ‘ … its cryptic colouring makes detection difficult. This camouflage is further enhanced by its habit of depressing its fathers to appear long and thin, raising its ear tufts and half-closing its eyes, creating the illusion of a tree stump.’

Once at the waterhole, where we were comfortably seated, we saw plenty of life.

Kudu and Marabou stork

Red-billed teal

Kudu

Laughing dove and Long-tailed paradise whydahs (?)

I think this is the male of a species of Paradise whydah in transition to breeding plumage, but I’m not sure

Impalas practising. Elephant dung gets everywhere.

Marabou stork

Long-tailed Paradise-Whydahs, male and female

The pool was not empty for long

Red hartebeest

And this I how the pool was when we left for our lunch.

It had been quite a morning!

Tanzania 5

Tags

cape buffalo, Defassawaterbuck, elephant, flamingo, grey-crowned crane, helmeted guineafowl, hippo, Hyena, jackal, Ngorogoro, Ngorogoro Crater, Oldupai, Olduvai, Rhino Lodge, Tanzania, vervet monkey, warthog, Wildebeest, zebra

Lunch on Monday, 15th February was taken under shelter at the Oldupai (the locally preferred name to the colonial Olduvai) Museum.  The renowned gorge is of great interest to anthropologists, archeologists and geologists.

Approaching the Oldupai Museum

From the top, ‘The Castle’ in the middle ground

Flock of goats with goatherd

We were given a talk, and I for one would like to have spent more time there, were it not that it was very, very, very hot, and air through our moving jeeps used to bring great relief.  As it was, we did not arrive at Rhino Lodge, that night’s accommodation, until fairly late, but not too late to see these in the grounds before it got dark around 6.30 pm.

Defassa waterbuck

Another very early start the next day as we were going the wildlife treasure, the Ngorogoro Crater, and wanted both to see

Sunrise over Ngorogoro Crater

and to  beat as many of the other jeeps as possible.

At last an elephant!

Helmeted guineafowl

Zebra and flamingo far off, in the early morning light

Zebra foal are brown and white

Just a few of a large troop of zebras which went past us

Playtime

Warthog

Always the crater rim as backdrop

Spotted hyena

Wildebeest and jackals

Vervet monkey

Grey-crowned crane

We managed to find a rather out-of-the-way but approved spot to have our breakfast.

– with conveniences!

The pink sheen is flamingos on the lake

A drama unfolded before our eyes.  This was the season when within three weeks thousands and thousands of wildebeest foals are born, in time for migration.  They stand and can walk within a few minutes of birth.  Prey animals love this time of course, and we saw hyena and jackals hanging around.  At one point a mother and calf got separated – sadly it seemed that a tourist jeep was culpable – and our hearts were in our mouths as we saw the hyena looking to exploit the situation.  The calf vainly sought its mother, and in turn attached itself to first one and then another adult female.

Wildebeest solidarity

Hyena joined by jackal

Amazingly, this jackal walked straight past these two – this is not the ‘right’ female – and the calf was able to rejoin the main herd, though we couldn’t tell whether it found its mother.

It’s getting very hot again.

Cape buffalo

We didn’t see many elephants in Ngorogoro

(To be continued)

Tanzania 4

Tags

Cokes hartebeest, giraffe, Grantj's gazelle, hornbill, Hyena, Impala, lion cub, marabou stork, Ndutu, Shifting Sands, Tanzania, Thomson's gazelle, Von der Decken's hornbill, White stork, Wildebeest, zebra

The afternoon’s safari

Marabou storks

Thomson’s gazelle (with horizontal black stripe), Grant’s gazelle (without) and Impala (Tawny colour)

included observing how difficult it is for giraffes to drink,

How do giraffes drink? Inelegantly

Von der Decken’s hornbill

a herd of wildebeest and zebras migrating firstly alongside us and then crossing our path, many of the zebras stopping to drink, though not the wildebeest,

Cokes hartebeest

and an enchanting time again, as night fell, with some lions.  It took some while for us to realise just how many there were in the heap and in the bushes, but in the end we counted seven cubs and three lionesses.  A delightful moment was when one of the latter just went and lay down on top of the heap of cubs.

The next day, Monday 15th February, meant it was time to leave Ndutu and move on, or rather to retrace our path.  This involved a much sunnier drive across the plain than when we arrived, and some great wildlife moments: a spotted hyena washing its meat, dozens of white storks at a watering hole and wheeling in the sky (sorry, no decent picture of that), and baby Thomson’s gazelle and wildebeest.

White storks coming in to land

We also stopped at ‘Shifting Sands’, an isolated sand dune that moves under the effect of the wind, a most curious phenomenon.  Shortly afterwards we were out of the Park.

(Soon: Ngorogoro Crater)

Tanzania 1

Tags

Bat-eared fox, Blacksmith plover, Common jackal, Dik dik, Egyptian goose, Fischer's lovebird, flamingo, Francolin, Genet, Grant's gazelle, Hyena, Impala, Kori bustard, lesser flamingo, Lion, Lovebird, Ndutu, Ngorogoro, Ostrich, Serengeti Select Safaris, Spotted hyena, Superb starling, Tanzania, Tawny eagle, Thomson's gazelle, White stork, Wildebeest, zebra

This Saturday, 27th February, I returned from a fortnight-plus-travelling trip to see the wildlife of Tanzania.

Ostriches

Over the next two or three weeks  I shall be sharing just a very few of the photographs I took of the rich wildlife that the country is conserving in its national parks.

We landed at Kilimanjaro Airport late in the evening of Wednesday 10th February after a violent rainstorm.  February is the middle of the wet season in Tanzania, though it has slightly less rain than the months surrounding it. Our leader, IW, had been fortunate in previous visits at this time of year in not having experienced much rain.  We had a fair amount over the two weeks though it only affected us seriously during the last part of our visit.

We (IW plus eight of us) left our overnight hotel in rain, which continued for much of the five-hour journey across the Ngorogoro Conservation Area to Ndutu Safari Lodge. We had first sights of many animals, but weather conditions did not make for good photos. We were pleased to be able to settle in our accommodation, and that the weather had cleared considerably.

We enjoyed the view.

After lunch and a good rest, we went out for our first safari drive.

Egyptian goose

Blacksmith plover

Tawny eagle

It was the time of the great wildebeest migration, and we saw hundreds, perhaps thousands, of these animals during our stay.

Bat-eared fox

It was not long before we came across our first lions (thanks to the expert knowledge of the drivers of Serengeti Select Safaris who were with us for a week).

Apologies to those of a sensitive disposition. The male had two lionesses with him, mating with each turn by turn every ten minutes. The stand-off at the end of the encounter is because it hurts the female.

White storks

The knee-high Dik dik

This beautiful nocturnal creature is a not a feline but a genet, related to mongooses.  We should not see it, but for years three of them have been visiting the dining room of the Lodge each evening, no doubt because they know that the kitchen will see them alright if they do.

The following morning dawned grey and overcast, but we hoped that, as the previous day, it would clear up later. Our first viewing of the spotted hyena led us to consider that it was fluffier than it seems on TV, and not nearly as ugly as we had hitherto thought, even when carting off a baby Thomson’s gazelle to eat.

Almost immediately afterwards we saw a Grant’s gazelle in the minutes before and after giving birth.

She had cause to be worried about hyena and jackal, but her only concern about this wildebeest is whether it will tread on her calf.

Kori bustard

Common jackals

Lesser flamingos

One of the most common birds around, the Superb starling

Impala

Francolin/Spurfowl

Fischer’s lovebirds

Back to the Lodge for lunch.

(To be continued)