The 2025 Botswana Journals, Ch. 37: Full Disclosure

(Click on any photo to bring up a film strip, then scroll through to see photos at full screen.)    

     To my great delight, Bellamy drives the safari truck back into the riverbed after we leave the lions.   Just before we peel off the high ground, we find a herd of impalas heading to the water.

    This beautiful stag watches us until it decides it is safe for the herd to move.

    When he gives the go-ahead, the herd comes out of the brush and goes to the river.

    

    Some birds we find while driving along the river bed:

    A blue-eyed white-breasted cormorant.

    And a gray heron.

        We see a couple of warthogs enjoying a drink and a refreshing bask in the cool wet sand.

    Up the hill they go.

    We meet up with the others under this magnificent Mashatu tree.

    I am fascinated by the multi-faceted trunks of these trees and take a few photos.

    Morning coffee/tea break with a few munchies.

In the distance, I see safari vehicles driving down to the riverbed.

    It's a beautiful, scenic spot for a video, so I get my cell phone and start recording.  

    There are two things I want you to note in this video:   1) the bushes on the right at the very end of the reel, and 2) the clear view of the riverbed there at those bushes.

    After consuming a can of Passionfruit juice, I decide it's time to find a "girl bush" so I wander away in the same direction the other gals had gone.

    The first bushes I find don't provide enough privacy, so I keep walking along the high bank over the riverbed.   Finally, quite a distance from the Mashatu tree and the others, I decide one bush affords enough privacy, but just in case, I face toward them as I drop my drawers.

    There's a baboon about 50 feet from me, so I'm concentrating on it and hoping it doesn't take offense at my bare bottom.   They can be dangerous.

    

    I'm paying so much attention to the baboon as I pull up my britches that only now do I see a safari vehicle in the riverbed--in full view of me.  I walk back to the others and tell them this funny story.

    One of the guides assures me that the occupants of the safari vehicle were no doubt watching elephants climb the riverbank and not looking at me!

    I still think it's funny.

    When we continue our game drive after mid-morning break, we encounter a couple of elephants under another Mashatu tree.

    

    

    One has its trunk stuck into a cleft of the tree trunk.   I have no idea why, but I think it's unusual and interesting.   I suspect the elephant has found something edible, perhaps fruit from the tree.

Your bird fix for this chapter--the astonishing Lilac-breasted roller.

    Driving onward, we see a bat-eared fox running away from us, and we follow slowly at a distance.   It lies under a bush, and we take some photos.    I am using every mm of my 500mm lens, plus this photo is highly cropped.

Had I not found the memory card that went AWOL for 2-1/2 months, this would have been my compensatory photo instead of the fabulous close-up shots that were on the missing card.

About Mashatu trees, from the Internet:

• "Land of Giants": The Mashatu Game Reserve is named after these trees, which are often found in areas with large elephant populations.
• Structure: They feature thick trunks, wide, dense canopies, and sometimes have exposed root systems.
• Wildlife Impact: They are a vital food source for elephants, which consume their leaves and fruit.
• Lifespan: These trees can live for 300 to 600 years.
• Fruit: They produce small, yellow-brown, edible berries.
• Habitat: They thrive in deep alluvial soils, often in association with termite mounds. 

    The Mashatu tree, also known as Nyala tree (Xanthocercis zambesiaca), grows up to 90 meters high, or almost 300 feet.

FInal part: The Day the Earth Broke

 Here's a link to the last chapter in my earthquake series.

https://gullible-gulliblestravels.blogspot.com/2010/04/day-earth-broke-part-three.html

Part Two of The Day the Earth Broke

https://gullible-gulliblestravels.blogspot.com/2010/03/day-earth-broke-part-two.html

A Brief Interruption to bring You Earthquake Memories

I am going to interrupt the Botswana Journals to bring you my memories of the Great 1964 Earthquake.  There will be three posts from 2010 on this subject,

In arranging this, I am surprised to find my pulse rate up, my heart in my throat, and my hands shaking.   

https://gullible-gulliblestravels.blogspot.com/2010/03/day-earth-broke.html

The 2025 Botswana Journals, Ch. 36: A Heron Teaches Us a Lesson

(Click on any photo to bring up a film strip.  Then scroll through the photos at full screen.)

    It's Zero-Dark-Thirty when we gather for a quick breakfast of yoghurt and muffins before our 5 AM departure for the morning game drive.   Bashi has already done a patrol outside our rooms, making sure there aren't any wild beasts to block our way to breakfast.

    This morning, I'll be with Bellamy, along with Marg, as we head to one of the many river bottoms.   The sun is lightening the horizon, but its golden rays have yet to penetrate the sandy river course.

Bashi and Marg, long-time friends, with dawn lightening the sky behind them.

        The first thing we find is the colorful Saddle-billed stork, a bird that stands almost five feet tall and has a wingspan of nine feet.  

This photo shows both the sandy and rocky river bed, as well as a drainage gully that brings rainwater into the main river.   As you can see, all that's left of the river are ponds, but at certain times, there is so much water that it carves deep trenches.

This is a female, as evidenced by her yellow irises.   Males have brown eyes, plus some bling under the bill.  Those red knees (ankles, really) make me think of my arthritic knees.

    We drive around a bend, and there's an egret.  Note the eroded soil on the riverbank.   Bee-eaters and kingfishers burrow into these banks to build their nests with tunnels 5 to 15 feet long, depending on the bird species.

A lone egret.

    A little farther on, I see this gray heron on the branch of a dead tree with the first sunlight bathing it in gold.

A gray heron with the Midas touch of the rising sun.

    I would like to take a photo, but I say nothing.   Not everyone on this trip is as crazy about photographing birds as I am.   I try to keep my "stop" requests to the really unusual sightings.

    Aha!    Marg asks Bellamy to stop, coming to my rescue.

    AND THEN!!!!    Look what we see:

Note the water trailing from the cub's tail.  

Such a patient mom.

    At last, the sun is getting high enough to penetrate the shadows in the riverbed to touch the lions and water with gold.

    The lions move to the opposite side of the riverbed when the sun is lighting up the area.   One cub finds a stick, and apparently, it's a most valuable stick because he hangs onto it.

    Later, after we have our fill of lion photos, Marg says to me, "Do you realize that if we hadn't stopped to photograph the heron, we never would have seen these lions?"

    "Yes," I say.   "Let this be a lesson.   Always stop for the birds."

    Our guides knew about this lioness with cubs but hadn't been able to find her recently.   Now they know where she prefers to hang out.

    Just above the riverbed, the lioness and her cubs are relaxing in the shade.

Well, the lioness is relaxing.   Not so the rambunctious cubs.   They're up to all kinds of antics.

 The lioness has a black scar around her neck from a snare.   She was rescued from it and went on to become a mother.

"Mum!  Not in front of all those people!"