There’s a bridge that crosses just south of our little stretch of river, with a tall termite mound (just so you know where they live, further to our termite mating post a week ago or so). Sorry about the confusing tree background
Surface detail. After the structure, the best part
And as luck would have it, we saw our biggest Shongololo yet. It’s a work of art
And eager to move. Watch this one!
That was the 2nd movie take. My friend ruined the first one
But back to the river:
This is the middle section of our little river stretch. It really is like out of a dream
The river’s main botanical interest are the water lilies
The first time the buds open they’re a light pink, then fade to white. They close each night
If you look carefully you’ll see a small water monitor swimming through the lilies here
Here’s a bigger one, maybe 3′, on land. About 60% of the size of the monitors in Bangkok’s canals, the same size as the beauty at Galvan’s Gorge, Australia, and less than half the size of the Komodos on Rinca Island, Indonesia
Which brings us to our first bird, the African Jacana
Check out the huge toes.This is how it walks across the lilies where it spend all its time picking bugs off the leaves.
It has a unique chick rearing habit: the male does all the work, and she’s polygamous so can have multiple families going at once. More detail on this here
Sometimes there are large groups of birds, maybe 5 our 6 species within a few yards of each other
This monster is the Goliath heron. He’s about 5′ tall
And he fishes for the big ones, like below
Ugly looking catfish on the right. A good fisherman catches about one fish every 10 minutes. The ones on the left show up ion menus as ‘bream’ which the Euro tourists understand as something meaningful apparently
These prehistoric birds are very hard to get close to. They’re African Openbills and are about 3′ tall. They eat snails primarily. They’re fat and happy. Anytime they want a snail they go to the water’s edge and immediately pull one out
Every time I get within 15 feet, off they go
Croc time.
A cow carcus near the water’s edge
And a 5′ croc sits a few feet off shore. I guess waiting for it to decompose a bit or something. They’re Nile Crocodiles, huge like in Australia, with verified records over 20′
Egrets. There are 3 species. You can tell them apart by beak colour
And an amazing Pied Kingfisher. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to catch one fishing. Hopefully I’ll catch it before I leave shortly
This is a Black Crowned Night Heron. A beautiful little bird, about 10″ high
This perfect little jewel is the Little Bee Eater
I’ve saved half of the cooler birds for another post.
So I watched a bunch of “important” Botswana cultural videos with a friend. I thought you’d think this one was interesting. It’s about a girl who wants a white boy to take her away, haha. Note the corny Canada picture at 3:25. Matebele by Charma Gal
But no matter, “very Botswana” says my friend, of the couple of dozen we watched this week.
Change of topic:
(You know how in Australia they shorten words like sunglasses to sunnies. And BBQ to barbie. In Botswana it’s even easier. Botswana is Bots, the capital Gaberone is Gabs, etc)
Anyway
In both Namibia and Bots meat is the thing (cooked well done by the indigenous, never bloody). Because there’s a lot of it, like every member of the antelope family from Springbok to Oryx, plus beef and zebra, hippo and dried elephant.
Here’s the grossest thing I’ve eaten here, a plate of Mophane worms. An expensive local delicacy. The white blob is sourgum. Really boring and rubbery
Each worm looks like this, about 2 or 3 inches long.
Actually it was pretty good. The guts had been fried out, so you were left with this crunchy and tasty shell.
The worm is actually a caterpiller of a giant moth. Pic from web
This is another local delicacy, water lily. The part you eat is the junction where the leaf stems exit the tuber. It’s mixed in with crushed beef and has a pretty nasty texture overall. Not a favourite
Comments
Wow! Aun estas viajando! This is fantastic… congratulations! aunque yo no me comería esta especie de gusanos….
Un abrazo!
Imma
(G translate)
Un fuerte abrazo para ti también Imma. Siempre es bueno saber de ti.
Good looking Kingfisher. Those bird shots are right up my alley.
Did you ever get all your Kazaranga shots into a blog or something?