Saturday afternoon, 2nd March. I was delighted to see as I got up from lunch to return to my room for a siesta, that there were several Sable antelopes on the opposite bank.
Such beautiful long horns
I took a few photos of and in my room.
Camera had difficulty in the darkish room. This was not the most luxurious of our lodges. Perhaps that was why I felt very much at my ease there. More pillow embroidery
This is the lodge’s bar area.
And here is a Go-away-bird in the tree beside me as I waited there for us all to assemble for another drive in the Mahango National Park. Many had really been hoping to see a cheetah these last two days. For myself, I had seen – just – one before, but I had never seen a leopard. We had been told that still might see one of these later in the trip, but this was the last time we might see a cheetah.
I do love the mohican hairstyle.
We covered the same ground as we had in the morning but in very different light.
Oops, I failed to note the name of this bird.Common impala (i.e. not Black-faced ones)Inside of am old termite mound, giving just a hint of the amazing engineering which keeps the mound – which is mainly below ground – aerated and cool.Little bee-eaterThis morning’s three wattled cranes again – presumablyRed lechweBlue waxbill. It’s a very small bird.Red-crested korhaanTsessebeWarthogs. They must have toughened ‘knees’.More Tsessebe, in evening light. (Being so near the equator, about 18° South, sundown is early, even in summer.)Lanner falcon
Saturday 2nd March. There was no wifi in our rooms at the Mahangu Lodge, only in the bar/dining area. And breakfast was not until 7 a.m. But I discovered that they served coffee from shortly after 6 a.m. there.
This morning, we went for a game drive in the Mahango Game Park. It was reasonably cool to begin with.
As I’ve said, there is elephant dung everywhere. Here are dung beetles making the most of the fact that a vehicle has already processed some.Warthogs, youngster kneeling to feed.Roan antelopeWarthog familySeeing this just makes me long to be back there.KuduPurple-banded sunbirdsKalahari tented tortoiseJacobin cuckooPearl-spotted owletGrey hornbillOur starling is beautiful when you really look at it. Africa’s starlings don’t need any study to show the same quality. Long-tailed starling.Red-billed spurfowlBurchell’s glossy starlingBroad-billed rollerBlue waxbillWattled cranes (‘uncommon resident’) – very far offIt was getting hot now. Paddling with these Southern reedbuck would have been very welcome!Frustrating not to be able to capture the image of this vervet monkey more precisely, but…… there were some of his companions across the wayAfrican fish-eagleDartersNile crocodileSouthern reedbuckRed lechweBaobab treeChacma baboonsCarmine bee-eater
We had been out for four hours, and were ready for our lunch.
Friday 1st March. Just before sunrise over the Okavango River from my ‘garden’ at the Kaisosi River Lodge.
A little while later, a fisherman was working from his dugout canoe opposite my room.
And just before we set off after breakfast, an African Pygmy-goose appeared.
We had been at the north of the Caprivi Strip, (that ‘handle’ at the north east of Namibia) and this morning were moving well towards the south of it but not much further east yet.
En route, we (they) couldn’t resist visiting the previous evening’s sewage works again. But before getting there we saw (among other things – it’s always among many, many other things, especially birds) ..
I’ve spent over half an hour searching for what this pretty bird might be, to no avail. Thank goodness that after this I started making a note of the name of every bird of which I took a photo! Much later: I’m beginning to suspect that my first thought, which I rejected initially because of the beak, was right. A Carmine bee-eater, its beak very much foreshortened in the photo.Upper wire: giant kingfisher with prey. Lower wire – pied kingfishers.
At the sewage works.
Painted snipe. Seeing this caused some excitement.Black-winged stiltIf the ground is too low for the telescope to be of use, you use whatever else is to hand, here the luggage trailer. RuffEuropean Bee-eater
We were due to go on a river cruise later in the afternoon.Almost as soon as we arrived, I was thrilled to see this Sable Antelope on the far bank. I had been doing my homework and knew that there was a possibility. Beautiful creature!Chobe dwarf gecko on the side of one of the roomsAnd this is the view from my own lime-green-painted room, which was to be home for three nights.There was a small ‘normal’ swimming pool at the lodge, but this one had been carved (not sure that’s the right word) out of the river. One of our number tried it and said it was quite impossible to swim there. He was just swept to the far (in this photo, near) side of the pool by the current.Way upstream these buffaloes came down to graze on the opposite side of the river.But directly opposite were many, many elephants. They entered right and left left, for over an hour. I stayed and watched them while most of the others went off for a bird-wander before our cruise.The white mounds are salt, put there by the proprietors of the lodge to attract creatures needing it, here elephants and, behind, kudu.Glimpse of a hippo
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