On our trip with CNP Safaris in mid-April, on the last afternoon of our trip we decided to travel up the Chobe river past Elephant Valley to have a look at the section of the river that flows passed Serondela. I have been up to this part of the river many times before but never when the water levels were so high. So we were all intrigued to see how the high water had changed the river bank – we were in for a big surprise!

“I arise today
Through the strength of heaven:
Light of sun,
Radiance of moon,
Splendour of fire.
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of wind,
Depth of sea,
Stability of earth,
Firmness of rock.”

~Saint Patrick

Just past the Chobe Savannah Lodge on the Namibian side of the river, we found this vivid Southern Red Bishop perched on a reed. It is unusual to see a shimmering red colour along the river bank, so we drifted closer.

This little character watched us and seemed quite content on his perch in the sun. Surprisingly, you do not find many Red or Yellow Bishops along the river bank despite many patches of reeds which are ideal for nest sites.

For those of you who have not been along this part of the Chobe river, you will not realise how unusual and how high the water level was. It was two or perhaps even three metres higher than the normal mid-summer level.

“You didn’t come into this world. You came out of it, like a wave from the ocean. You are not a stranger here.”

~Alan Watts

These trees normally do not have their feet in the water.

Further up river we came across a pair of Lilac Breasted Rollers. They had a nest in a dead tree stump which they were jealously guarding against all comers, from boats to fish eagles.

A fish eagle was perched on a dead tree close by and this pair of rollers dive bombed as they saw it as a threat.

You can see from this fish eagle’s full crop that it was just perched, soaking up the afternoon warmth and was no threat to the rollers.

These are exquisitely beautiful rollers especially when they open up their wings. I have never seen Broad-billed or Purple Rollers along this part of the Chobe river.

A little further along we found a few Green-backed Herons. They seem to be less skittish along this part than further down river closer to Kasane.

  

Normally, when travelling on the boat you would never be able to see over the river banks.

“Your deepest roots are in nature. No matter who you are, where you live, or what kind of life you lead, you remain irrevocably linked with the rest of creation.”

~Charles Cook

The width of the river widened considerably creating new open patches of water in some places and in others, new channels.

Down along this densely tree-lined section of the Chobe river close to Serondela, we found a small flock of Black Crowned Night Herons. This is the resident family on this part of the river. They are usually crepuscular and nocturnal, so it is unusual to see them in the early afternoon. They normally start emerging from the deep shade around last light.

Along this section of the river the bank is lined with Natal Mahogany, Jackal-berry and Rock-fig trees. The rock-figs seemed to like their feet in water and their contorted, exposed roots systems conjure up images of the “Ents” in Tolkien’s ‘Lord of the rings’.

The Serondela section of the Chobe river is lined with a dense grove of trees for about two kilometres. Then it opens up onto flood plains and sandbanks.

There is nothing at Serondela other than a camp site but is a marker for the outer reaches for our afternoon journey. On our way back we stopped to photograph this majestic fish eagle who put on quite a show for us.

It is one of nature’s miracles and immaculate engineering to be able to unpack a wing of such immense size and structure with the fingers of an artist feeling the wind.

We found one lone “dagga-boy” standing on top of a sand bank chewing the cud, accompanied by a bevy of Red-billed Oxpeckers. This old buffalo bull was vulnerable along this section as it is well-known for its lion activity.

A White-crowned Lapwing flew with us along the river’s edge for about one hundred metres.

It was making sure that we got out of its territory.

 

On the way back to Kasane, just past the densely lined treed section near Serondela, the trees thinned out towards Puku Flats. Normally, we would not be able to see the elephants on the far side of the river. Just beyond the water lilies is usually dry land.     

Two young elephant bulls jostling with each other. It was hot and the clouds were building but it never rained. The clouds provided a wonderful, dramatic background.

Again, for those who have been along this stretch of the Chobe, you will be amazed at how high the water level was. It would not take too much more to completely flood Puku Flats.

On our way back to Kasane just past Elephant Valley, we came a cross a small family of Kudu which had come down to drink and en route were browsing on the lush vegetation close to the water’s edge.

It was late afternoon and soft pinks and purples began to colour the sky and water.

The evening colours start to reveal themselves as the sun started to set softening its strong light. This is a sublime part of the early evening when you want to just sit, be quiet and appreciate the exquisite beauty.

“I am in love with this world . . . I have climbed its mountains, roamed its forests, sailed its waters, crossed its deserts, felt the sting of its frosts, the oppression of its heats, the drench of its rains, the fury of its winds, and always have beauty and joy waited upon my goings and comings.”

~John Burroughs

Just before the sun sets the colours in the sky intensify, a colour-filled climax where there is greater contrast and drama in the sky.

By this point we are almost back at the lodge at Kasane. The sun had set but the sky was on fire.

I hope this sequence of  images convey the mood, diversity and at times, unusual scenes we were fortunate to experience and photograph that afternoon. I always come away from times like these on the river with deep gratitude for the privilege of being able to see such abundance and beauty.

“For the 99 percent of the time we’ve been on Earth, we were hunter and gatherers, our lives dependent on knowing the fine, small details of our world. Deep inside, we still have a longing to be reconnected with the nature that shaped our imagination, our language, our song and dance, our sense of the divine.”

~Janine M. Benyus

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

The Chobe National Park supports one of the largest concentrations of elephants in the world, estimated at around 120,000. The elephant population is dispersed throughout northern Botswana.

“Go out, I beg of you

And taste the beauty of the world.

Behold the miracle of the earth

With all the wonder of a child.”

~ Edna Jacques

The Chobe National Park can be divided into four eco systems, the Chobe river front in the north-east, Savute in the west,  Linyanti swamps (similar to the Okavango) in the north-east, and the hot dry area inbetween. We were based on the Chobe river front, photographing in the section of river between Kasane and Serondela. The Chobe river front area receives an estimated 35,000 to 55,000 elephants depending on the season.

Females stay together in family groups while males either form small bachelor groups or wander off on their own. The next image is of a lone bull browsing on the lush vegetation  just down river from Elephant Valley. The river bank is steep along this section of the river. We don’t often see much game along this part, as there is no escape route and it is dangerous to drink along this river bank because the water is deep and a thirsty animal would never see a crocodile coming.

An elephant’s trunk is a remarkable piece of its anatomy. An elephant uses its trunk much like an arm. The tip of the trunk effectively works like a hand and is capable of great nimbleness and dexterity. The African Elephant has two prehensile fingers at the tip of its trunk whereas the Asian Elephant has just one.

“Nature is man’s teacher. She unfolds her treasure to his search, unseals his eye, illumes his mind, and purifies his heart; and influence breathes from all the sights and sounds of her existence.”

~Alfred Billings Street

An elephant’s trunk has over 40,000 muscles and can hold up to eight litres of water in one draw. It is immensely strong and is capable of pushing down trees and picking up the smallest twig. Its trunk is one of the elephant’s primary sensory organs. When an elephant senses danger is usually lifts its trunk up in the air to get a better idea of the nature of the threat from its smell and its direction on the wind.

These are emotionally sensitive animals with strong family ties and long memories.

Adult elephants weigh between 2.5 tonnes, for a young female, and 7.0 tonnes, for a large bull. An elephant calf usually weighs around 90 kilograms at birth. Once in the water these large mammals seem to enjoy not only the coolness of the water but also its buoyancy and so become more playful in the water.

This is also a great time for young bulls to spar with each other.

“The story of elephant is also the story of water. They are at home in the water as on land. These water dances are playful games but with an undercurrent of testing wits and strengths”

~ Dereck and Beverly Joubert from the Soul of the Elephant

The young bulls mount each other is what looks to be play. Although they look to be trying to mate, it seems to be more about play and dominance.

This type of behaviour is not seen on land probably because they are just too big and heavy.

“Wisdom begins in wonder”

~ Socrates

Ivory – an elephant’s “achilles heel”. Both male and females have tusks. They are used for digging, carrying and fighting. Tusks continue to grow for all of an elephant’s life and as such are an indicator of age. The visible part of the tusk is usually about only two thirds of its length. A tusk is effectively an elongated incisor and comprises dentine similar to ordinary teeth. An elephants tusk grows up to 18 centimetres per year. It seems that the incidence of elephants with no tusks are increasing in some areas such as Gorongosa in Mozambique. Perhaps this adaptation which might be their saving grace. 

It is hard to believe that someone would want to kill these two tussling young bulls just for their ivory tusks. These elephants can grow to over seventy years of age without human interference.

“Ironically every dead elephant found with its ivory intact is a reason to celebrate. It means an elephant died of natural causes, not bullets, snares or poison, and a soul was allowed to be celebrated and mourned by its herd.”

~Dereck and Beverly Joubert

The young bulls seem to love playing in the water. They chase phantom rivals and enjoy making an almighty splash.

In the deeper water they seem to get a kick out of swishing their head and trunk back and forth in water creating large waves and sprays.

An elephant’s ears are big enough so that when they flap them, they can reduce the temperature of the affected area of the body by up to ten degrees Fahrenheit. Each elephant’s ear is different and like a fingerprint can be used as a form of  identification. An elephant also uses its ears as part of its body language. It has very sensitive hearing capable of picking up a range of sound frequencies, many of which humans cannot hear.

Elephants are highly vocal creatures. Their high frequency sounds such as trumpeting and snorting are used for short distance communication whereas elephants use infra-sound to send low frequency sound waves great distances. Humans normally cannot hear these low frequency sounds.

The young elephants have to be careful in the shallows of the Chobe river as there are some large crocodiles which will easily take a baby elephant. Needless to say this youngster’s mother was close by.

Small, hairy with uncontrollable trunks and perfect ears.

This young elephant was putting on a show for us and watching to see that we were looking at it all the time.

Nothing like a good powdering after a refreshing bath. Most animals use their nose for breathing but an elephant also uses its trunk for drawing water and drawing in dust and mud to spray over itself to protect or cool down its hide.

“What light is to the eyes – what air is to the lungs – what love is to the heart, liberty is to the soul.”

~Robert Green Ingersoll

Elephants are among the world’s most intelligent animals. They are capable of expressing a wide range of behaviours which we as humans associate as grief, learning, play, compassion and co-operation, to name a few.

This young bull was chasing the elephant in the front, all around the open area in front of us. This could possibly be young bull rivalry or it might have been a female, I could not tell.

If you were being chased by something that big you would run too!!

This was one of three large bulls strutting in amongst the herd, unsettling the females.

“There is something hypnotic about being in the path of a charging elephant, something dangerous but peaceful, beautiful. Time warps, we focus on the dance of the ears and sound dulls because we believe he will stop but we don’t know. It is strange that you feel most alive when you face death. When it is over ,I find myself strangely relaxed, privileged with having been face to face with a elephant.”

~ Dereck and Beverly Joubert from ‘The Soul of an Elephant.’

An imposing bull elephant with the gathering thunderclouds behind him.

Elephants have one of the most closely knit societies of any living species which are usually only split by death or capture.

“The  story of elephants is a timeless story of ghosts. They leave us messages, ancient footprints in the sands of time. In some places, it is the message of extinction as 35,000 elephants are poached each year, purely for their ivory. In other places there are messages of hope where there are still giants, seven tonne giants in full sail. Their movements are mediation, their eyes shine with a deep intelligence…….”

~ Dereck and Beverly Joubert from the ‘Soul of an Elephant.’

This image was taken on the Botswana side of the river  just down river from the Chobe Game lodge.

Elephants are the only other known species of animal, other than man, to have any recognisable ritual around death. I was privileged to experience this first hand early one Sunday morning in Mashatu in south-eastern Botswana. The matriarch had died about ten months earlier. There was nothing left but her skull and a number of her bones. Two herds separately  approached the site where the matriarch’s bones were scattered with what seemed to be great reverence. It was very quiet and individual elephants walked up to the bones and gently touched and caressed them with their trunks and the young ones also rolled the bones over with their feet. A group of us sat watching this ritual in absolute silence as the sun was rising . It was like being in cathedral without a word being spoken enveloped with an overwhelming sense of reverence.

“They approach with a side on strut, then dip their heads for the charge. When flapping ears and trumpeting, we are Ok. It is when they go quiet and drop their heads that it could go either way. There is a subtle language to all of this…..”

~Dereck  and Beverly Joubert from the ‘Soul of an Elephant’.

I wonder how much longer we will be able to marvel at these incredible sighting of elephants and more importantly whether our children and their children will have the privilege of watching these highly intelligent social beings in their natural environment.

Human beings are waging a war against elephants, obviously not all human beings but enough of them to cause their rapid population decline. We are losing elephant populations so fast that it is a race against time. Asia’s hunger for ivory is insatiable. Most of the ivory trade is illegal run by underground cartels. What will the poachers do when they run out of elephants  – will human parts be the next source of commercialisation???!!!!!!!!

“Go into the government’s ivory stockpile in Nairobi. It is like being in a genocide museum. “

‘Central Africa has lost 64% of its elephants in a decade’ – National Geographic.

Tanzania has emerged as the epicentre of of Africa’s elephant poaching risk after a government census revealed it had lost a “catastrophic” 60% of its  elephants in five years. Tanzania’s elephant population had been one of the largest but data revealed by the Tanzanian government showed that between 2009 and 2014, the number of elephants has fallen from 109,051 to 43,330.

“Our prime purpose in life is to help others. And if you can’t help them at least don’t hurt them.”

~Dali Lama

In early 2014, Botswana became one of the few African countries with abundant wildlife to put an end to trophy hunting.  President Kama stated that hunting was no longer compatible with wildlife conservation and urged communities to switch to photographic tourism. There is now the cry that the ban on hunting has worsened the human-wildlife conflict in many parts. Perhaps all the leftover meat discarded by hunters attracted the predators in the first place and perhaps the elephants normal habitat has been lost by human predation. 

Once humans have commercialised wildlife to the point of extinction  – then what? Perhaps in our quest for personal gain and we should remember that we are integral custodians of this natural system of immense wisdom. We are not the most important creatures on this planet, we are only as important. Because of our overwhelming growth we are crowding out all other creatures on this planet. We have a pressing responsibility to pass on this world to our children in at least the state we found it or preferably with less human interference. So far this generation has shown materialism and greed and a desperate lack of responsibility and intergenerational fairness! Where did we get the idea that everything in the natural world must fit in with us and that we have a right to commercialise everything we come across ?

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

In April 2016, my daughter Lauren and I were fortunate enough to spend four days on photographic safari with CNP Safaris on the Chobe River. A big thank you to friend, guide and excellent photographer, Johan Greyling for a productive four days on the river..

“Wild rivers are earth’s renegades, defying gravity, dancing to their own tunes, resisting the authority of humans, always chipping away, and eventually always winning.”

~ Richard Bangs & Christian Kallen, River Gods

The Chobe river flows along part of the northern border of Botswana. We were lodged at Chobe Safari Lodge in Kasane and went out on the CNP photographic boat every morning and afternoon up the Chobe river between Kasane and Serondela. This part of the river stretches up to the Chobe Game Lodge  and further upstream for another six or seven kilometres, all of which is in the Chobe National Park. 

I have been on the Chobe river before in April but the river was much higher than usual. The high waters enabled us to access places which were normally only available to the road safari vehicles.  The special aspect about the boat is that it gives photographers a unique perspective and the animals allow the boat to come closer than they would a road vehicle.

“Sit by a river. Find peace and meaning in the rhythm of the lifeblood of the Earth.”

~ Anonymous

The high waters were at least two months early and the river’s water level was the highest I have ever seen it. This was a paradox considering southern Africa is in the grip of the worst drought in over 20 years. The headwaters of the Chobe form on the slopes of Mount Tembo  and build into the Cuando river which flows through the central plateau in Angola into Namibia’s Caprivi Strip and into the Linyanti Swamp on the northern border of Botswana. Down river, below the swamp the river is called the Linyanti which flows west and becomes the Chobe River, before it flows into the Zambezi River.

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”
~George Bernard Shaw

The high waters were a playground for not only Chobe’s massive Elephant herds, but also for the festival of water birds along the river. In this post, I have focused on one unusual water bird, the African Jacana. This is one of the two Jacanas found in southern Africa, the other is the Lesser Jacana. I was really hoping to get some decent images of the Lesser Jacana but they are seldom seen. All the conditions seemed right but we never saw one.

We found quite a few Jacana fathers with their chicks. The abundant Jacana chicks were unusual for this time of the year, as it was a later than usual. African Jacanas build a rough floating raft of water-lily stems and grass. The nest is not specially lined and the conical eggs are laid straight onto this rough floating raft. African Jacana females lay approximately four glossy eggs which are camouflaged with different markings. Once the eggs are laid, the female leaves the male to incubate them.

Jacana chicks are born precocial. According to Stanford Education Group, a precocial bird is “capable of moving around on its own soon after hatching.” There are degrees of precociality. Level 1 means the chicks are totally independent of their parents immediately after hatching. Level 2 of precocial development is found in ducklings and the chicks of many waders. They follow their parents but find their own food, which is what jacanas chicks do. The precocial chicks hatch with their eyes open, they are covered with down, and are capable of leaving the nest soon after hatching (they can walk and often swim).

The chicks would stay close to the river grass and reeds when their father was not close by, as they could quickly hide in the grass if threatened.

These new-born jacana chicks were foraging for snails, flies and small insects which landed on the water lilies.

These tiny waders must be a few grams in weight and are about two inches in size.

Every five or ten minutes the father would make a sound (which I could not hear) and the chicks all gathered around him and one-by- one tucked themselves under each of his wings.

At times the father would get up and walk with the chicks under his wings. In times of danger, the father is known to gather all the chicks under his wings and run across the water lilies to get his family into a safer area.

The African Jacana has evolved a  polyandrous mating system. This means that one female mates with multiple males and the male alone cares for the chicks. Such a system has evolved due to a combination of factors. Firstly,  jacanas live in a resource-rich environment so the energy expended by the female in producing each egg is minimal relative to its access to food. Secondly, the jacana lays an egg which can be equally well incubated by either parent.

The river is a dangerous place for new-born jacana chicks. There are raptors from above, water monitors in the grass and crocodiles and tigerfish in the water. When these chicks sense danger from above they either dash into the grass and reeds or alternatively dive under the water and float just below the surface with just their beaks protruding so they can breathe.

It was quite cold early in the mornings so every ten or fifteen minutes the male would fly back to his chicks and gather them under his wings, possibly to warm them up. They would remain nestled under his wing, two chicks under each wing for about five minutes before they started to get fidgety.

If an adult jacana stands on a flat round water-lily pad-like leaf too long it will slowly sink. The chicks do not have that problem.

One of the amazing aspects of the Chobe river, and it is true on any bush experience, it is never the same twice. This time the water levels were particularly high and this gave us a unique opportunity to photograph adult jacanas on lily pads in more open water which improved the backgrounds. Some mornings the water was so still it looked like blue glass.

When the wind blows its sometimes catches the underside of the water-lily pads lifting them up revealing a heavily textured underside with numerous veins. This also gives the jacanas an opportunity to search for snails and water insects which live under the lily pads. The flat round leaves have a waxy water-repellent upper side. The underside, however, seems to cling to the water by surface tension. Some water lily leaves are a purple brownish colour underneath. The pigments help concentrate the sunlight to maximise photosynthesis. The leaf stem is hollow and transports air from the surface to the underwater rhizomes which can grow to a massive size. Water Lilies grow best in calm freshwater.

The African Jacana is unique among Chobe’s water birds. Its colouring is striking with a bright blue frontal shield. This shield consists of a hard fleshy plate of specialised skin extending from the base of the upper bill over the forehead. This shield is thought to protect the face while the jacana is feeding in, or moving through, dense vegetation, as well as to courtship display and territorial defence. This shield is found in rail and jacana families.

“When people ask me what equipment I use – I tell them my eyes.”
~ Anonymous

The adult jacana has a  line of black feathers from its beak through its eye spreading out over its crown and neck. It has a golden necklace and its wings and body feathers are a rich chestnut-brown. Their most striking feature though, are their long legs and especially long toes which spread out over the water-lily pad enabling the jacana to distribute their light weight on the lily pad.

If jacanas are not looking for insects inside the water-lily flowers they are pecking insects off the surface of the lily pad.

The next few images show the African Jacana’s lily trotting ability.

“Taking pictures is savouring life intensely, every hundredth of a second.”
~ Marc Riboud

“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle.”
~Nhat Hanh

“We labour long and earnestly for peace, because war threatens the survival of man. It is time we labored with equal passion to defend our environment. A polluted stream can be as lethal as a bullet.”

~ Senator Alan Bible

Jacanas are good fliers and usually fly low over the water from one flotilla of lily pads to the next. This inevitably takes them into other jacana’s territories and causes conflict accompanied by much noise.

  

It is only once the African Jacana adult is flying that you get to see just how long its toes are.

African Jacanas are the ballerinas of the Chobe. They are very light on their feet and very nibble.

“Taking an image, freezing a moment, reveals how rich reality truly is.”
~ Anonymous

Jacanas don’t seem to show much respect for the water-lily flowers and often walk right over them once they have inspected their stamen for insects.

“Of course, there will always be those who look only at technique, who ask ‘how’, while others of a more curious nature will ask ‘why’. Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information.”

~Martin Parr

Although there are many jacanas along southern African water ways, it is seldom that you can get a clean shot of a jacana because they feed on insects on flotilla of water lilies and along river banks. We were lucky on this occasion finding a few relatively scattered waterlily pads in an open section of water which provided opportunities to shoot images of jacanas with clean backgrounds. This was in a section of water where we do not normally find water-lily pads but the flooded waters must have created this situation.

  

Late one afternoon on our way back to the lodge, we were making our way through the flooding grass when we came across this adult jacana, which was swimming. It did not try to fly away. We followed it for about ten minutes. African Jacanas are capable swimmers despite not having webbed feet but their very long toes do get caught in the grass under the water. 

At one point, we thought this might be a male which was carrying his chicks under its wings but the intervals between resting points were too long for the chicks to have survived. Another thought was that this bird was moulting but that was not obvious. We never got to find out why this Jacana was swimming and not flying.

I will never grow tired of climbing onto a boat and travelling up the Chobe river. Every journey is different, it offers new insights and mysteries revealed. I gain a deeper appreciation for how interconnected everything is with the river. The sublime beauty painted with soft hues, the peace at dawn punctuated by a fish eagle’s cry is heaven.

“Rivers hardly ever run in a straight line.
Rivers are willing to take ten thousand meanders
and enjoy every one
and grow from every one.
When they leave a meander,
they are always more
than when they entered it.
When rivers meet an obstacle,
they do not try to run over it.
They merely go around
but they always get to the other side.
Rivers accept things as they are,
conform to the shape they find the world in,
yet nothing changes things more than rivers.
Rivers move even mountains into the sea.
Rivers hardly ever are in a hurry
yet is there anything more likely
to reach the point it sets out for
than a river?”
~James Dillet Freeman

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike