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 craneBlack-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 legsStrutting their stuffShowing 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)HoopoePale 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 orderA gemsbok/oryx arrived, but did not yet go near the pool.Wildebeest hold backAs 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.
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 MongoosesSecretary bird, the last we were to seeOur first elephant, much further off than it appears from this maximum zoom photoThe Pan in the middle groundRock 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 hyenaAnother 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 storkRed-billed tealKuduLaughing 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 sureImpalas practising. Elephant dung gets everywhere.Marabou storkLong-tailed Paradise-Whydahs, male and femaleThe pool was not empty for longRed hartebeestAnd this I how the pool was when we left for our lunch.
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