We came across a magnificent bull giraffe doing its treetop munch backed by a forest in glorious light.
‘Oh look at that,’ said Dave, ‘there’s an oxpecker under its tail.’ All binoculars zoned in on the beast’s speckled bum. I suddenly remembered that birders have avian tunnel vision. We stopped to see some red lechwe delicately nibbling grass.
‘Look at that beautiful yellow saddle,’ exclaimed Liz. Yellow saddle on a red lechwe?
‘And just look at that beak!’ I turned to find all binos on a distant saddle-billed stork.
‘And see that stick up there in the tree? Well next to that’s a Meyer’s parrot. Oh, it’s gone…’
At one point we stopped near a hullabaloo of birds and tree squirrels soundly scolding something we couldn’t see in the grass. A snake? A leopard? Later that afternoon, in the slanting rays of the very-African sun, we drove through woodlands that were park-like and glorious. Lechwe and waterbuck grazed, hippos huffed and stickle-backed crocs slid into the pools like giant cheese graters. Massive white thunderheads were building and were soon rumbling and flashing, finally releasing legs of rain – but not on us – and providing a deep blue-grey canvas for the setting sun.
That night the hyena came again, sniffing through the kitchen area and, undoubtedly, around our tents after we’d turned in. Seeing unblinking yellow eyes staring at you out of the moonless blackness as you pick your way to the toilet in seriously unnerving.
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