Morning Drive

What a drive!  We ranged all over today, searching for a cheetah or leopard.  Which we did not find.  We found a lot of other beautiful things though!  We were off to a nice start with a group of elephants including a baby and one slightly older with a weird trunk.  None of the pictures of the little ones were any good, sadly.  

Elephant

 There were of course lots of impala.  I was captivated by the light.

Impala

 We came to a channel crossing that would soon be our favorite, truly one of the best spots.  There were so many herons, kingfishers, ducks, etc. there, it was wonderful!

Saddle-billed Stork

White-faced Ducks

Squacco Heron

 Closeby there was also this hawk eagle.  I'm so impressed by the variety of eagles here.  It's amazing!

African Hawk Eagle

 We saw two adult vultures, a male hanging out on a branch and this female on the nest.  Maybe soon there will be more little vultures around!  It was uncommon for us to see vultures, it was really the opposite of Costa Rica.  I kept guessing things were vultures that were in fact eagles, there were so many eagles around.

African White-backed Vulture

 Weavers!  Look how bright they are, and that face!

Southern Masked Weaver

 I'm not as excited by the green pigeons anymore, but they looked so handsome on this bare tree.

Green Pigeons

 Hahahahahaha, the blue helmets!

Helmeted Guineafowl 

 There are a lot of giraffes around, we see them often.  I'm pretty spoiled at this point.

Giraffe

 This elephant is doing something very right or very wrong with its trunk.  It did untangle itself, so I guess all is well.

Elephant

 We saw these little tiny dudes several times, we just can't remember the name.  And the little book I got is not helpful.  We saw them alone, and they were pretty shy, and pretty fast!

Mystery Small Antelope

 We stopped at a lake and the guys made us a fire by twirling sticks, it totally worked!  It was not easy, but it did work.  Don't worry, we made sure the fire was really out before we wandered off.

Fire

 Meanwhile there were magpie shrikes hanging out!  This one had to do.

Magpie Shrike

We drove by this impressive hammerkop nest.  It has one real entrance and one fake (larger) entrance leading to an empty chamber.  Clever.  

Hammerkop nest

 Ostriches!  In my head they are gossiping about each other.

Ostrich

 Look at them run!  They are really good at it.  Apparently these are the fastest antelope.

Tsessebe

 How magical does this look?

Wildebeest

 I really thought this looked like a movie.

Zebra

 Not just another pretty face.

Warthog