“My bags are packed, I’m ready to go…”
Not so fast, there.
A) Your camera gear isn’t packed.
B) You are nowhere near ready to leave Pangolin Chobe hotel, and
C) You still have a morning outing on the photo boat.
After four nights here, our itinerary says we must leave for our next destination: Dinaka Private Reserve, 42,000 unfenced hectares bordering the northern edge of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.
But first, one more trip on the Chobe River before our chartered flight westward across Botswana.
We ask the boat driver to take us to the rapids, where, after days of overcast skies, the sun makes its dawn appearance and transforms the world to gold.
A kingfisher in silhouette greets the day.
And, we once again find the half-collared kingfisher, who is a bit more cooperative.
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| Fluffed up against the morning chill. |
And, I spot weavers I’ve never before seen, making the two of them “lifers” for me.
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| Cape weaver. Lifer bird for me.. |
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| Village weaver, a Lifer bird for me. |
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| Brown-hooded kingfisher |
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| Pied kingfisher, left, and reed cormorant. |
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| Rock pratincole |
We spend some time at the rapids and then make our way upstream in the couple hours remaining before we need to go to the airport. It’s only a ten-minute ride from the lodge, so there’s no big rush.
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| Rock pratincole |
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| Rock pratincole |
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| Black-winged stilt |
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| Wire-tailed swallow |
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| Water thick-knee |
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| Pied wagtail and juvenile |
At Elephant Bay, which is really only an indentation along the shoreline of the Chobe River, we watched elephants yesterday. This is where most of the herds come to drink from the river.
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| The youngsters are always protected from crocs by the older elephants. |
Today, a special treat. Some elephants appear on the horizon, and a baby breaks loose from adult supervision. Flapping its ears and trumpeting, it makes a dash for the river, scattered guinea fowl fore and aft. It’s a comical sight.
I lose track of him when he joins a group of other elephants, who tuck him into their midst to protect him from the crocodiles. It takes about a year before a baby can manage the 60,000 muscles in its trunk, so it immerses its mouth in order to drink.*
Moseying downriver, we come across a troupe of chacma baboons. The sun is behind them, making for backlit, rimlit, and silhouette photos, which are fun to play with.
All too soon, the camera gear is packed away, our bags loaded onto trucks, and we ride to the Kasana airport for our chartered flight to Dinaka Lodge.
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| Kasane International Airport |
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| Loading up at Kasane |
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| Landing at Dinaka |
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| Landing strip in view. |
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| The airport safety equipment. Fire extinguisher, buckets for water and/or sand, a backboard, rakes and other tools for putting out grass fires. |
Two things happen when we deplane:
1. The staff is there to greet us with a song, and,
2. A nearby tree is loaded with birds!
I think I’m gonna like this place!
Dinaka camp greeting:
*Some sites claim otherwise: It’s a common misconception that there are hundreds of thousands of muscles in the trunk, but there are actually only 17 muscles in the trunk. There are eight muscles on each side of the trunk and one central muscle between the nasal passages.
The confusion regarding how many muscles there are in the trunk may be due to the fact that the 17 muscles of the trunk are composed of up to 150,000 muscle fascicles. Muscle fascicles are bundles of muscle fibres that are surrounded by connective tissue.
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