Day 6, Chobe National Park late morning boat ride, part 1.
We get to sleep in! Our first activity is a boat cruise at 9:30 am, so we get to enjoy a leisurely buffet breakfast before we head for the jetty. This time, our guide, Sefi, drives the boat, and it's a smaller boat with just our own tour group.
It's back to picture-taking time. Here are some African darters:
A pied kingfisher:
Grey go-away bird (grey lourie):
A jesus bird, so named for how it appears to "walk on water":
The photo below shows the "walk on water" technique a little better. Notice the spur-winged goose looking at the jesus bird curiously and the dangerous crocodile in the background.
The bird on the right is a pied kingfisher, the left one is a forktailed drongo.
Wire-tailed swallows:
Water monitors are hard to pick out from the background of earth, leaves, and sticks. They are cool to watch move, though, so if you have time view the movie at the bottom of this blog post.
This vervet monkey is way up in the top of a huge tree.
Here is a vervet monkey mom and baby. There is a banded mongoose just off to the right.
A group of impalas came down to drink. This photo shows clearly the "Mac Donald" sign on their rear ends:
I took a series of photos showing an elephant eating the bark of a tree, to illustrate the issue of elephant destruction of the forest in Chobe National Park.
In the last photo, I zoomed in on the elephant's face. I like this photo - you can even see the elephant's facial hair.
We saw a boatload of people looking at something - oh! It's a crocodile in the water!
Our guide pulls our boat nearer.
For a full 8 minutes, this crocodile sat there and posed for us with his mouth open. I zoomed in for a close-up:
Here's what it looks like just past the stationary crocodile. Hippos and birds and another crocodile lounge, fly, and feed. The big brown and white birds are spur-winged geese, and the white one on the hippo is a white egret. (I shot a movie of the scene too - see the bottom of this post.)
A close-up of a single and then several spur-winged geese:
The crocodile that was posing finally closed his mouth . . .
. . . and swam away.
We saw another jesus bird:
And an Egyptian goose:
We also saw a black sable although it was too far away for me to get a good photo. But hippos were nearby and posed for us:
We are about an hour into our late-morning boat cruise. Off on the shore, in the distance, is a large group of elephants. Our boat moves closer . . . but that tale will have to wait for my next blog post.
Water monitor moving:
I took the following movie as our boat neared the stationary crocodile that "posed" for us. I like it because it shows an intermix of hippos, crocodiles, birds, and even tourists.
Navigation: first safari blog entry
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It's back to picture-taking time. Here are some African darters:
A pied kingfisher:
Grey go-away bird (grey lourie):
A jesus bird, so named for how it appears to "walk on water":
The photo below shows the "walk on water" technique a little better. Notice the spur-winged goose looking at the jesus bird curiously and the dangerous crocodile in the background.
The bird on the right is a pied kingfisher, the left one is a forktailed drongo.
Wire-tailed swallows:
Water monitors are hard to pick out from the background of earth, leaves, and sticks. They are cool to watch move, though, so if you have time view the movie at the bottom of this blog post.
This vervet monkey is way up in the top of a huge tree.
Here is a vervet monkey mom and baby. There is a banded mongoose just off to the right.
A group of impalas came down to drink. This photo shows clearly the "Mac Donald" sign on their rear ends:
I took a series of photos showing an elephant eating the bark of a tree, to illustrate the issue of elephant destruction of the forest in Chobe National Park.
In the last photo, I zoomed in on the elephant's face. I like this photo - you can even see the elephant's facial hair.
We saw a boatload of people looking at something - oh! It's a crocodile in the water!
Our guide pulls our boat nearer.
For a full 8 minutes, this crocodile sat there and posed for us with his mouth open. I zoomed in for a close-up:
Here's what it looks like just past the stationary crocodile. Hippos and birds and another crocodile lounge, fly, and feed. The big brown and white birds are spur-winged geese, and the white one on the hippo is a white egret. (I shot a movie of the scene too - see the bottom of this post.)
A close-up of a single and then several spur-winged geese:
The crocodile that was posing finally closed his mouth . . .
. . . and swam away.
We saw another jesus bird:
And an Egyptian goose:
We also saw a black sable although it was too far away for me to get a good photo. But hippos were nearby and posed for us:
We are about an hour into our late-morning boat cruise. Off on the shore, in the distance, is a large group of elephants. Our boat moves closer . . . but that tale will have to wait for my next blog post.
Water monitor moving:
I took the following movie as our boat neared the stationary crocodile that "posed" for us. I like it because it shows an intermix of hippos, crocodiles, birds, and even tourists.
Navigation: first safari blog entry
Next blog entry
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