We heard an hyena last night and a hippo, otherwise the night was quiet. I had the camera ready to record but I was never fast enough. I did record some of the night sounds and this morning some of the sounds we wake up to. Hopefully they will be audible when I play them back. Greg and Juanita heard what they thought was a very noisy bird outside of their tent this morning only to discover upon searching for it that it was an irate tree squirrel chattering away with a sound that was like someone laughing. After breakfast this morning, we split again into two groups and changed drivers. Today we had Jacks as our guide. Our group got to go the the water first. We all got into dugout canoes in pairs and a guide (ours was named Wax) poled us down the channel. It was quite shallow - there may have been two or three feet of water in the deepest part. We skirted close to the reeds and sedges. There were many white pond lilies in bloom and an occasional blue one - very pretty. There were also some very small yellow flowers call yellow water pistols. Wax had Dave pick one. It had a very long tube-like stem and a sac near the flower that was filled with water. When you squeeze the sac, water would squirt out of the flower. We saw lots of dragon and damsel flies (damsels fold their wings and dragons don’t) flitting here and there. It was very tranquil on the water. There was a current, but it was not a fast one. At one point, we could see and hear buffalo. I took a video, but because I was sitting so low in the water, I think I only caught the splashing noises they made as they ran away when they spotted us. A little further along, we heard the hippos. Wax pulled into the reeds and said we could stand up to take a photo. They were a bit far away (and after yesterday, I was happy to be that distance from them), but it was fun to see and hear them. They eventually drifted off. Was and the other guides decided to turn around at that point so as to not come closer to the hippos. On the way back, I mentioned that I was surprised to not come across any frogs as it seemed like the perfect habitat for them. Wax pulled up close to the reeds and pointed out a tiny 1 - 1.5 inch frog sitting on the reed. They are called painted reed frogs. The first one we saw was white and later he pointed out a brown one. They are the same frog - they have the ability to change color. I still can’t believe he had the eyesight to spot such a tiny creature! We came back to shore and had morning tea and the other group joined us. They were going out on the canoes next. I made Jacks turn around so I could get a picture of his backside to add to my collection of animal backsides - some of them move away so quickly that the only picture you get of them is when they are running or walking away. After the second group got on their way, we left for our game drive. We saw a tawny eagle and a little bee eater right away and then we stopped to take photos of a lilac breasted roller and a white-backed vulture. We stopped again because we could see and hear a bunch of baboons. One male was very vocal and seemed to be chasing after a female with a monkey clinging to her belly - there was a lot of chasing and vocalization going on. He also charged a smaller male and chased him off. The large male chased the female into the top of the tree and we heard some shrieking, but we waited until we could see her again and saw that the baby was okay. Our next stop was for a swallow-tail bee eater and as we were watching him, a marsh harrier hawk flew by overhead. We saw another fish eagle and a spotted turtle dove. At our next stop, we saw a sunbird and a fork-tailed drugal. We saw a small black and white bird called a chat and several yellow-billed kites. Jacks then parked the truck and had us get out for a little bush walk. We stopped at an evergreen tree (they don’t look anything like ours). Jacks explained that the bark of the evergreen along with the dried sage and dried elephant dung was used by the bushmen to start a fire. We stopped to take pictures of the red-billed Francolin and Jacks told us that there are two other Francolins (the Swanson’s with a red throat and the crested). We stopped by the large termite mound and Jacks told us a few more interesting facts about the termites. The queen lays about 150,000 eggs per day. Scientists have studied them and found that it takes five years for a termite mound to achieve the size of a soccer ball so using that statistic, Taps estimate of this mounds age (70-80 years) were fall far short. It is certainly a very, very old mound. Just before we crossed the wooden bridge, we spotted another fish eagle posing on the limb of a big dead tree. We got some lovely shots of him. As we were nearing camp, we could see that a small troop of baboons were trying to get into the recycling area.
We came back to the camp for brunch and siesta time. At 3:30 we will have tea and a lecture about the Okavanga Delta by Jacks, one of the driver-guides. The river source for the delta starts in the Angola highlands and then is joined by another river in Namibia. They flow into Botswana where the delta is formed. The water that starts in Angola may take six months to reach the delta near our camp. Five percent of the water along the way is lost due to evaporation or usage. There has been talk of building a dam in Namibia, which would be a terrible threat to the flora and fauna of the delta, but at the moment it is only a threat and not a reality. Other threats to the area are global warming, pesticides, and invasive weeds.
After the lecture we had our afternoon game drive. We started off by spotting two vultures. Our guide spotted hyena tracks in the sand of the road, but he was not around. He stopped at one point and asked us to identify what looked like antelope horns, but we were looking at it wrong - it was a pair of warthog tusks from a large male. He picked up some scat by the side of the road. It was bigger than deer or impala scat, so I guessed waterbuck, but it turned out to be giraffe poo. We saw seven kudus and then stopped by the waterhole to watch hippos performing what might have been a mating ritual. He was putting on a wonderful performance for her, vocalizing and opening his mouth to almost 180 degrees. She didn’t seem to be as impressed as we were. It was wonderful to just sit in the truck and watch the show, but eventually we had to leave to meet up with the other group for our sundowner ritual (drinks and watching the beautiful red African sunset). We then went back in the dark to the lodge for dinner. The America’s Got Talent show was better on our part this time. I had another haiku:
Delta game drives in
Kalahari Ferraris
Led by Taps and Jacks.
Greg put on a juggling act and the rest of us did “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands”.
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