The morning alarm clock was controlled by courtesy of the local hippopotamuses that awoke us at 05:15 with loud grunts and snorts. The hippos were on the river-bank close to our houseboat and their noises preceded a return to the water at dawn. Large splashes were also heard in the pre-dawn and our guide Fabian suggested that these may have been due to cape clawless otters that exist in this flood plain region.
At 06:30 immediately after breakfast we joined Fabian in the photography boat and moved off slowly along the riverbank which was dominated by hippo-grass, common reeds, papyrus and the occasional tall tree which were probably thorny acacias. The colours of the foliage in the soft, early morning light was transfixing with silence abounding apart from bird calls. The air temperature was perfect at around 20°C and the mirror stillness of the water made for stunning reflections; the whole scene was quite awe inspiring!
Papyrus reflections
There were numerous bird sightings during the morning but the first special one had to be the purple heron that allowed us a close approach and seemed unperturbed by our proximity.
Little egret
We saw several species of weaver birds together with their extraordinary pendulous grass spherical nests hanging from the river-bank trees. The glorious golden yellow of the southern brown-throated weaver made for a visual treat and the fact that they were quite common meant that the cameras were working overtime in regions where these beautiful birds frequent. Each year the male weaver bird may take a week or more to weave a nest and if his partner decides that it doesn’t meet standard, he will build another and so on until satisfaction is achieved. This means that in some trees we could count a dozen or more nests and yet most of them were unused due to them being regarded as sub-standard real estate!
Brown throated weaver bird
Brown-throated weaver bird pair
Brown-throated weaver bird nest
Undoubtedly the highlight of the morning was to enter a side section of the river that was a water lily garden extending for a kilometre or more. The near complete coverage of the water meant that Fabian had to search for a path in amongst the white and mauve flowers and their lily pads.
Water lillies
Purple heron
African open-bill stork
Bird life here was abundant with squacco herons, egrets and African open-beak storks aplenty.
Not surprisingly, the lily garden was a Mecca for jacanas with the common African jacana seen often. However, to our great joy, we came upon several of the rare lesser jacana. This is much smaller than the African jacana and has white underparts and pale buffy grey upper parts. This unexpected encounter with lesser jacanas was an absolute treat for us and made even more special by the birds’ apparent lack of concern for human presence
Jacana
Lesser jacana
Fabian was experiencing issues with the boat’s battery and although he could manually start the 100 HP engine with a rope, he phoned back to the house boat and a replacement battery was soon on hand.
Other species sighted during our morning safari included fish eagles, Ailen’s galinule (a type of swamphen), fan-tailed widow-birds, red-eyed doves, reed cormorants, banded martins and chirping cisticolas. A little bittern was sighted briefly but soon disappeared before any photo was possible. Hence the expression “once bittern, twice shy”!
Fish eagle
Fish eagle
At one point in the river, the tranquillity was interrupted by frenetic bird action.
There was feeding frenzy happening right around us with several dozen white wing terns and whiskered terns dive-bombing the water around us in the hunt for ‘bait’ fish. The two species of tern working together maybe reminds us that ”one good tern deserves another”.
Malachite and pied kingfishers were plentiful although generally shy when approached. Nonetheless we did manage get very close to a pied kingfisher sitting on a low limb with a black bream in its beak.
Pied kingfisher with black bream
Cattle egrets
At 10:00 we returned to the houseboat for a brunch of omelettes and other delights.
By mid-day the houseboat was on its way to a new location back on the main Chobe River where we tied up to the bank for our overnight stay.
The late afternoon photographic session now included a new guest Roy, from Phoenix Arizona.
We ventured further up the Chobe River and first encountered some kudu does grazing on the thorny foliage at the river’s edge. The kudu had ox-pecker birds foraging on their backs for parasitic bugs.
We were then very pleased to spend quite some time photographing white fronted bee-eaters. These highly attractive birds have blue, green red and white coloured plumage and match closely colours of the South African flag!
A further cause for joy was to see the shy and somewhat rarer kingfisher, namely the grey capped kingfisher. It was sitting on an under branch and it was difficult to get a unobstructed photograph although we obtained a reasonable image.
Spotted flycatcher
Grey-headed kingfisher
Around the next bend in the river we saw in the distance eight giraffes and then a herd of elephants arrived at the riverbank nearby. These elephants were drinking copious amounts of water in the warm to hot weather and the continuous flapping of their vast ears provided an important temperature regulatory system. For each flap of the ears per five seconds, around twelve litres of blood are shunted through the ear circulation and the cooling effect is achieved by water evaporation from the ear surfaces. Female elephants reach sexual maturity at 12 – 15 years whereas the males remain bachelors until around 25 years. Even then, the young bull elephants have to compete with other males to have any breeding success.
Giraffe
Elephants
Elephants
Elephant
Bird life along the riverbank was plentiful but the main new species seen were francolins and spotted flycatchers.
With the sun now low in the sky we tried with varying degrees of success to get silhouetted shots of an elephant with the pink sun behind. This proved a challenge and yet Fabian did an amazing job attempting to manoeuvre the boat so as to give us alignment with the lone elephant and the setting sun.
Giraffes at sunset
Elephant at sunset
Giraffes at sunset
Sunset
Hippo at sunset
When we returned to the houseboat there was a herd of a hundred or more impalas on the riverbank opposite. Wow!
Impala at sunset
In summary, an amazing day!