Leave for Change in Botswana

Warning: This thread is picture heavy!

Lola and I were lucky enough to hook-up with Ridel for the trip. Not only was his recommendation to meet at 7AM spot-on (initial grumbling as it was a Saturday morning!) but he was also very knowledgeable about the wildlife we saw (blame me for forgetting the names, he knew what he was talking about) and seemed to know exactly where to find them. His piloting skills were also very impressive, he fit that boat into some tight places so we could snap some of these pictures.

(Some of the pictures are on the side. WordPress does that from time-to-time and I haven’t figured out why.)

We saw a lot of wildlife on the trip and I have more images than I can possibly post here. In no particular order:

Water Monitor

The image may not convey it, but this is a large animal. We were a bit worried about how close we were to it.

African Fish Eagle

Truly a majestic bird. This particular one seemed to follow us for a certain part of the trip. Apparently, if we had brought some fish along they’ll grab it right out of your hand. Sounds like one lazy bird.

White-backed Night Heron?

A very rare bird and, from what we were told, we were very lucky to see one as some people spend a considerable amount of time trying to track them down. Unfortunately, it was also quite shy and try as we might, these were the best images we could grab. I have more if anyone is interested.

Hippos! Well, just one actually.

I just don’t understand. You can hear them everywhere! And yet, we only see one when we were out looking for them. However, it is winter at the moment so they migrate to warmer parts of the Delta and only venture into the shallower coast areas at night.

Crocodile

This is just a baby. We saw a much, much larger adult but it was way too fast for us to catch it on camera. Fine by me, it scared the hell out of us (well, maybe just me).

Stork (not sure what kind)

Very stoic. Just stood there and let us snap a whole bunch of photos. Gorgeous bird.

Tiger Fish

We ran into some local fisherman and this was part of their catch. Not really my cup o’ tea, but check out the teeth on the one on the right! That’s a Tiger Fish. It was at this moment that I decided to never, ever, step foot into any body of water in Botswana.

Iguana

We didn’t see this anywhere near the water but on the way back to the house. It had this strange lilting way of walking. Two steps forward, one back, two steps forward, one back etc. Very weird animal.

Here’s a few more random shots:

(Lola gave me written permission to post this.)

That’s it for now! Sorry for all the pictures (specifically, for the ones of me. April ordered me to make sure I was in some of them!).

It was truly worth the trip! Later on this week we’re planning on heading to the Tsodilo Hills. They’ll be more pictures then!

My next post will be be technical. Just thought I’d drop a warning ahead of time.