Magpie shrike | Musiewild's blog

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Botswana, buffalo, Carmine bee-eater, Chobe river, Chobe Safari Lodge, Chobe Safari Park, Collared sunbird, Common myna, Dark-capped bulbul, emerald-spotted wood-dove, golden weaver, Impala, Lucky bean tree, Magpie shrike, Malachite kingfisher, Namibia, Openbill, Red-billed quelea, Schalow's turaco, tree squirrel, white-winged widowbird, Zambezi River

Tuesday 5th March. Last few hours in Namibia. During our customary pre-breakfast walk around the grounds of our lodge, the Zambezi River looks much the same as it did the evening before.

These splendid flowers are those of the Lucky bean tree.

Poor early morning light , and distance, made it difficult to get a good take on these woodland kingfishers.

On our way to a different border crossing…

But before getting there, we stopped for coffee at a very small lodge, with, I think, the hope of seeing a particular bird.

Not this tiny one, spotted first by me (a rare occurrence!), a collared sunbird…

but this large pigeon-sized one, very elusive high in the tree, a Schalow’s Turaco, only found immediately round here, and in the same group as the Go-away-birds.

This is the young man who showed us round. He was raising the tree squirrel, hoping to release it into nature in due course. It was very tame.

Continuing, and near the border crossing…

By lunchtime we had reached the Chobe Safari Lodge, right by the Chobe Safari Park, where we were to spend two nights. I have to say, very comfortable and smart as it was, it was my least favourite resting place. It was HUGE! As a result the dining area sounded like a large works canteen, very noisy, though I had no complaint about the food. There was a large swimming pool which had many people around it, as if we were at a seaside resort. And my room, on the second floor (there hadn’t been any second floors so far) was really just a very modern, characterless, hotel room, from which this was the view, onto the Chobe River.

Not to be blamed on the lodge, but the temperature that day was the highest we were to know – 38° C max – and, with an overnight temperature of 20°C min, at last I gave in and put some air conditioning on. I had been resisting up to that point on environmental grounds.

A corridor area and part of the dining area, with, rarely, no-one else immediately around

Our leaders, being themselves visitors from Namibia, were not licensed to show us round the national park, so later in the afternoon, we went out for a drive to … another sewage works. Some good sightings though. Here are a few.