This is the day on which the lack of sleep finally caught up to me, thus the delayed blog post. Once again we had a very early start, coffee at 5: 00, with a 5:30 departure to the Chobe National Park entrance gate. Entering the park just before sunrise, we were greeted by the eerie silhouettes of Marabou storks sleeping high in the dead trees
Soon they started waking up and taking off. These birds, truly magnificent in their ugliness, are surprisingly elegant in flight
Up next, was a group of lions, lazing about in the middle of the road and causing a traffic congestion, which unfortunately made photography rather difficult
Driving along the river bank, we saw Little Bee-eaters hunting
Hippos were seen lazing about in the shallow water, where the water lilies could also be seen in the early morning light
Next up, was a very lazy lion, clearly having recently eaten his fill and now just lying under a tree, occasionally opening one eye to look at us, but otherwise barely moving
After a stop for morning coffee, we started making our way back, stopping to photograph White-fronted Bee-eaters hunting
Getting back to the hotel just in time for brunch, we then had a few hours available to look through our morning’s photos and video. As usual, I tried culling as many as possible of the unwanted photos immediately, in order to leave me with a manageable number to finally go through and select my favourites.
In the afternoon, after high tea, we were back on the river. An African darter, sitting on a log against a dark background, gave us opportunity to experiment with low key photography, before flying off, giving us further opportunity to photograph it in flight
Elephants and hippos are always interesting to observe and photograph.
As the sun was getting low on the horizon, a Fish Eagle came to the water’s edge for a drink, giving a smaller bird quite the fright when it decided to take off again
With the setting sun behind them, a herd of elephants also came down to the water’s edge to drink, with a lazy crocodile looking on
We arrived back at the hotel just in time for a quick shower before dinner. After dinner it was back to downloading and culling photos and charging batteries. At this point my own battery also needed some charging and I decided to get an extra hour sleep, rather than writing my blog post.
Etienne's Camera 