wednesday oct 17
patsenojexpedition
patrick and susan jones
Wed 17 Oct 2007 18:19
sightings included several white rhino. the white rhino is not white, but the color of an elephant.
the dutch were misunderstood when they spoke of the rhino, so the name white rhino stuck. they were eradicated in this area , but were reintroduced several years ago. there are only 34 in the okavango delta, and only 4 in chiefs camp (the former is about 500 square kilometers).
also saw a white impala (albino) with all the normal black racing stripes but white everywhere else---also the first in okavango delta area. then the list goes on to include a large monitor lizard (long darting tongue), 2 crocodiles snapping at birds flying low over a little stream, a couple of lionesses, one of whom (is a lion a whom or a which?) was nursing 3 very young cubs. also saw a young zebra nursing as well. found a hippo in a small marshy pond that decided to wait out the day there rather than go back to the much larger marsh area with the rest of his buddies. we annoyed him so much that he got out of the water and stood in the grasses, so we got a photo of a hippo in the daylignt which is not common. saw a bunch of mongeese (probably 20-30) that looked literally like a small
river of single file rats running furiously along a path----.
on the injury report, i may have mentioned that i took a tumble a couple of days ago wheni tripped over an invisible rope over a boardwalk that was tying two little boats together. my camera went flying almost into the water, my camera bag flew into one of the boats and i went splat on the boardwalk. damage was just a bit of pride as well as a nice looking bloody finger that is still a nice shade of purple. susan had her turn today----the vehicle always is going through brush and thorn trees, and while she was organizing something in her bird book a random thistle branch attacked her...leading to some drama and a scratch on the scalp that healed quickly after an outpouring of sympathy from the guests on the vehicle.
susan also got scowled at by a couple of lions today after she accidentally dropped something in the vehicle---they had been sleeping in the sun and were generally oblivious to the vehicles, but the dropping sound was like a gun i imagine, so they were immediately alert and looking to go after the offender. this was ok, but the guide also made a crack about "dont do that" and we both were ready to smack him because it was not something that was intentional.
it is amazing the damage that is done by the elephants. often the countryside looks like a war zone with all the trees pushed over, which they do to eat the tasty roots or the tasty bark of certain trees. so there are a lot of horizontal trees that have survived and the branches that remain become little tree-lets growing upward that the smaller animals can feed on.
the okavango delta floods in august or so, and dries out over the coming months, so at this time, there are a number of ever-decreasing little ponds full of fish. this tends to attrach lots of fish eating birds, highly concentrated around the little ponds shoulder to shoulder, all fighting for frogs and little fish. today we saw a flock of probably 30 maribou storks (huge birds with large wattles) all congregated around a little pond--even the guide was impressed.
for those of you that are geopolitically inclined, take a look at the strip of land that separates botswana from angola. it is just a little strip of namibia all the way across the top, which was put there by a deal with a german colonialist and the namibian government to allow him access for his beef cattle from namibia to zambia---across the top of botswana.
tomorrow (thursday) is the last full day, and leave friday for matetsi game lodge in zimbabwe.