Our first morning drive

Up and at 'em!  We did not sleep well last night.  First of all, the tent has spiders.  More than I am comfortable with.  I am comfortable with zero, and this was more than that.  And these were not daddy-long-legs type spiders, they were serious!  But they were outside the mosquito netting, so we had to just deal and sleep.  Knowing there were spiders.

But that wasn't the hard part, we were expecting some ...... extra small entities in our tent.  That's normal.  However, when you wake up at 1:30 AM and hear heavy breathing outside your tent, walking up and down just outside the canvas for 20-30 minutes, that was not expected.  Struck me like a large dog, but of course there are no domestic dogs at this safari camp.  Turned out later there were hyenas in the camp last night, and apparently one of them was hanging out by out tent for a while.  That was...... well, we didn't sleep well, let's just leave it at that.

However, the morning made up for all of that in short order.  First of all, check out this sunrise!  This was taken on the boat on the way to the car.  Because that's how we roll.

Sunrise

 Well I thought I would never be so close to a lilac-breasted roller again, but guess what??  Yes, that's right, look at that gorgeousness!

Lilac-breasted Roller

 We saw a lot of kudu, I love the light on these guys.  Those horns are impressive.

Kudu

 This elephant gave us a coy glance while eating.

Elephant

 This fish eagle is having a rougher morning that we are.

Fork-tailed Drongo harassing Fish Eagle

 Hello giraffe!  I am very very happy to see you!

Giraffe

 The first of about a zillion blacksmith lapwings.

Blacksmith Plover/Lapwing

 Bustards!

Black-bellied Korhaan/Bustard

Black-bellied Korhaan/Bustard

 Another roller!  This one is broad-billed, they are shier.  I never got a really close look, but I did see them fly away several times.

Broad-billed Roller

 Who loves baby antelope?

Tsessebes

 We were giving the tsessebes too much attention, the zebras came over and totally photobombed.

Zebras photobombing Tsessebes

Blue Waxbills

 Ostriches!  Hahahaha, they are awesome.

Ostriches 

 This giraffe is running.

Giraffe 

 Another baby!

Zebras

 We saw so many of these, I'm glad I got a nice picture of one.

Fork-tailed Drongo

I fell a little bit in love with magpie shrikes.

Magpie Shrike

 This one had to go.

Magpie Shrike

 Reedbucks are excellent at hiding in plain sight.

Reedbuck

 Our first bateleur eagle!  I was so happy to see these again.  :-)

Bateleur Eagle

 It was ~quite~ a great introduction.  We got back from the drive so late that we missed breakfast altogether, and went straight to lunch.  Wonderful!