Chobe is a wonderland for wildlife photographers. The diversity of landscapes, scenes, flora, mammals, reptiles and birds is astounding. We photograph from a specialised boat operated and guided by CNP Safaris. It has a customised camera support system and the boat is flat bottomed, which makes it very stable shooting platform. We are on the boat every day in the morning from 6h30 to 9h30  and 15h30 to 18h30 in the evening. At this time of the year the river is rising, filled by the good rains as far away as the highlands in Angola. April is early autumn in the southern Hemisphere so the insect activity has diminished and many of the avian migrants have already headed back to their northern climes. While the mobility of the mammal population is dependent on the rains, the avian population is highly seasonal and has much to do with the air temperature which has a profound effect on the density of the insect population. By this time of the year, the cuckoos have moved north, bee-eaters such as carmines and blue-eared have also departed for northern parts. Many of the kingfishers are intra-African migrants and have also moved. The stork diversity has thinned out. A number of the eagles have migrated and so have a number of kite species.

“The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense his life. . . . The beautiful vagabonds, endowed with every grace, masters of all climes, and knowing no bounds — how many human aspirations are realised in their free, holiday-lives — and how many suggestions to the poet in their flight and song!”

~ John Burroughs

Despite a major migration of species north from southern Africa in autumn, there is still an abundance of species which are resident in this part of the world. Thankfully my penchant for raptors is still satisfied even in autumn despite migrants like the Steppe, Lesser Spotted and Wahlberg’s Eagles having moved north. I am not sure where it came from but I think it must have been from my senior school days at Falcon College in Zimbabwe where we had a very active ornithological society, which was focused on raptors and where a number of the schoolboys practiced falconry. It is for this reason I look out for raptors when I go out onto the Chobe river.

“There is nothing in which the birds differ more from man than the way in which they can build and yet leave a landscape as it was before.”

~ Robert Lynd

On our first morning we saw this juvenile Martial Eagle perched on a large (fallen) dead tree. It was looking intently at something on the ground. It could have been a guinea fowl or small mammal. You could see it was a juvenile by its white face and neck. The adult has a dark brown head and neck and piercing yellow eyes.

Even from quite a distance you could see it was a Martial Eagle just by its sheer size. This youngster was moving his head around as if trying to get better perspective on its potential quarry. I am not sure why they do this but it could be to get a better sense of its distance to target.

As it heated up during the morning, we would see more raptors climbing into the developing thermals. This was a big raptor but I am not sure what it was. I think it is a juvenile Marsh Harrier but it was soaring and not flying low over the flooded reeds and grasses. It also looked a bit big for a Marsh Harrier. Looking at the shape of its head it looked like a Harrier or Buzzard. Perhaps it was a juvenile Jackal Buzzard. There was no barring on the tail feathers which eliminates quite a few possibilities.

“No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.” 

~ William Blake

We were sitting in the boat moored in an inlet watching all the wader activity when our guide pointed to a  juvenile Bateleur Eagle, which we did not see at first, until it moved. It was sitting next to the trunk of a fallen dead tree and was well camouflaged. Only when it moved onto a open dead branch could we easily see it. It sat there for ages intently watching all the goings on around the inlet. As any raptor photographer knows, it can sit there for longer than your patience will last.

A juvenile Bateleur has a greenish facial skin and cere where as a sub-adult has a reddish facial skin and cere.

“Every child is a born naturist. Their eyes are, by nature, open to the glories of the stars, the beauty of the flowers, and the mystery of life.”

~unknown

A Bateleur’s facial skin is also known to change colour depending on its level of excitement. This could have been a female sub-adult judging from the lighter primary feathers compared to those seen in males. The male’s primaries and secondaries are dark. This is one way to identify the sex of a Bateleur when it is perched.

Another sign that this could have been a sub-adult female was the darkened thin trailing edge on the underside of its primary feathers. I know only too well from past experience that as we start to pull out from our position the raptor we had spent the last half an hour watching will often fly and sure enough I was waiting for it. You need high shutter speeds (above 1/5000sec) to handle the moving boat and flying raptor and get the subject pin-sharp.

“The wilderness holds answers to questions man has not yet learned to ask.”

~ Nancy Newhall

A Fish Eagle sunning itself. It may have been hunting earlier that morning and could have been drying its wings.

“Each species is a masterpiece, a creation assembled with extreme care and genius.”

~Edward O. Wilson

The Marabou Stork will certainly not get any beauty accolades. Its bald, pinkish head and pinkish-white neck gives it a somewhat hideous look. We nickname these storks “Dr Death” as they usually sit on top of tree in the setting sun with their heads tucked into their shoulders giving them a macabre silhouette, as if guarding the cemetery. You can see from this character’s gular pouch on its neck that it was not excessively hot. Usually this gular punch hanging from its neck gets swollen when it is very hot as it acts as a thermo-regulator. The sac swells and contracts depending on the amount of cooling or heating the stork’s blood needs. 

We regularly see African Harrier-Hawks low gliding from tree to tree along the Chobe river. They forage in canopies of living trees and in dead trees. They have broad wings for slow deliberate flight among the trees. They also use these broad wings for balance when accessing crevices from difficult angles in trees and rocks.

This African Harrier-Hawk was inspecting all the cavities in this dead tree looking for nests. Those double-jointed legs are able to get into most “nooks and crannies”. You will often see drongos and rollers mobbing an African Harrier -Hawk as it makes its way along the river because they know only to well it could raid their nests.

This majestic adult Fish Eagle was perched on a dead tree stump giving it a perfect view across the river. Fish Eagles are primarily perch hunters and will take off from the perch and glide (albeit at speed) down to snatch the unsuspecting fish from the surface of the water. Fish Eagles are also  to hunt anything from jacanas to mongooses, if their main prey is scarce. 

Fish Eagles are highly territorial and can often be seen riding a thermal high above their territory and arching their heads back, while in flight, giving that iconic Fish Eagle call.

There is sexual dimorphism in Fish Eagles, not in their colouring, but the females are noticeably larger than the males. This is usually only evident when they are perched together in a tree. 

When you are on the river, you will usually see Fish Eagles in all seasons but the other raptors are unpredictable except perhaps the African Harrier-Hawk. On some trips you see a Martial and/or Bateleur and other times nothing. That is part of the mystery. When we set out first thing in the morning and afternoon we are all brimming with expectation. The amazing thing about the river is, from my experience, you never see the same animal or bird in the same place doing the same thing, so each outing is completely different, which helps explain why I keep going back to Chobe each year.

“We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals… In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”

~Henry Beston

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its inter-connectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

The Chobe river offers many moods. Colours best reflect the moods of this river.

“The pale stars were sliding into their places. The whispering of the leaves was almost hushed. All about them it was still and shadowy and sweet. It was that wonderful moment when, for lack of a visible horizon, the not yet darkened world seems infinitely greater—a moment when anything can happen, anything be believed in.”
~ Olivia Howard Dunbar

On our first afternoon, there was plenty of cloud, some of it heavy with moisture. It was warm and unusually there was a rainbow over Kasane. The sun was setting in the west but the magic show was taking place in the east where the setting sun had illuminated the heavy clouds over Kasane. In all the times I have been on the Chobe river while the sun was setting, I have never seen the sky in the east so vividly illuminated in apricots, pinks , mauves, purples and blues. The busy skies hung over what was the still water surface reflecting the pink clouds among the water lilies.. 

The river was so high that we were able to drive directly over Sedudu island. This island was sprinkled with water lilies. Normally in summer the river is one two metres below the level of the island so we are usually able to watch Pied Kingfishers nesting in the bank.

The low light and the moving boat provided an ideal opportunity to play with slow shutter speeds. This is a motion blur designed to show off the colours without  specific shape, perhaps typifying the moodiness of the evening light.

“The stillness of the early morning scene enables me to take in and enjoy many things which pass me by during the bustle of the day. First, there are the scents, which seem even more generous with their offerings than they are in the evening.”
~ Rosemary Verey

The next morning we left the lodge at 6h30. It was light but the sun had not yet risen. The area was infused with soft pastel colours in the still cool air. The next image was taken looking back down river towards the “three sisters” before we reached “Pygmy Geese” Bend.

Early in the morning quietly moving upstream is dream like and exquisitely beautiful. I have often described this time as the closest thing I can imagine to heaven on earth. The stillness, serenity and beautiful soft pastel light together with the sound of a fish eagle calling in the distance is very soothing for the soul.

Further upstream with the sun higher in the sky, we made our way through the vast floating beds of water lilies.

A closer look at the water lilies revealed perfection, and wonderful colours.

“Simplicity boils down to two steps: Identify the essential. Eliminate the rest.”

~ Leo Babauta

Selecting isolated water lilies can provide wonderful artistic subjects.

The still surface of the river created sublime backgrounds.

” My life is shaped by the urgent need to wander and observe and my camera is my passport.”

~ Steve McCurry

Further upstream we went up to Puku Flats opposite Savanna Lodge. The area was completely flooded.

For those of you who have been on the river, you will see how high the river level has reached. It was literally a few feet below the lodge.

Another image showing how high the river had risen.

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.”

~ Mark Twain

On our way back downstream from Elephant Valley toward Chobe Game Lodge, we found a small family group of kudu which were licking minerals from the soil.

An hour or so later we were travelling in last light towards Sedudu island. The sun was still relatively high in the sky but the cloud cover was thick making it quite dark.

“You can always make money, you can’t always make memories.”

~unknown

On the homeward journey, in the warm evening light there is usually much chatter and laughter coming from the passing boats.

The evening sky was, on this occasion, set on fire by the setting sun.

As the sun sunk below the horizon, the evening sky darkened and the colours shifted from warm rich oranges and reds towards pinks, purples and blues.

“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.”
~ Marcus Aurelius

Another early morning on the river at sunrise. Looking back towards Kasane ridge, once we had passed “Pygmy Goose” bend, the sun had just begun to peer above the ridge

“We all live under the same sky, but we don’t all have the same horizon.”
~Konrad Adenauer

Dancing lilies 

We were able to take the boat through these vast lily beds which enabled us to see the African Jacana nests and chicks up close.

The intertwined roots of a Jackalberry tree exposed by many years of the river’s water eroding the soil away from the roots’ hold.

On the evening of our second last day. We stopped to take images of the “three sisters”, three Jackalberry trees which have grown on a high sand bank at the east end of Sedudu island. On this particular evening the sky was a riot of clouds and colours.

“Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add colour to my sunset sky.”
~ Rabindranath Tagore

This is a favourite place for many of the boats to stop and take photographs of the setting sun with the “three sisters” as the point of focus.

This image was taken from our “photographic boat” once we had tied up to the jetty at the lodge. We had to be out of the park by 18h30 but this is often the time of the day which offered the most dramatic scenes.

“Africa is waiting – come!
Since you’ve touched the open sky
And learned to love the rustling grass,
The wild fish-eagles cry.
You’ll always hunger for the bush,
For the lion’s rasping roar,
To camp at last beneath the stars
And to be at peace once more.”
~C. Emily-Dibb

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its inter-connectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

This is the first post from my trip with CNP to Chobe in mid-April 2017.

“If I have ever seen magic, it has been in Africa.”

~ John Hemingway

The Chobe river begins its life as the Cuando river which rises in the central plateau of Angola on the slopes of Mount Tembo. It breaks up into channels some of which flow east to form the Linyati which then becomes the Chobe along the northern border of Botswana. The river was the highest I have ever seen it in mid-April. Usually the river level is building to its peak around June each year but the exceptional rains late in the summer season have brought a huge amount of water down the river. The rains usually begin in November in Angola and the Chobe river swells quickly usually reaching its highest level in the Kasane area around June each year. The river bottlenecks around the Kasane area which forces the river to spread over its floodplain. It is this time from December to April each year that many of the waders nest in these flooded waters, especially African Jacanas.

“Africa – You can see a sunset and believe you have witnessed the Hand of God. You watch the slope lope of a lioness and forget to breathe. You marvel at the tripod of a giraffe bent to water. In Africa, there are iridescent blues on the wings of birds that you do not see anywhere else in nature. In Africa, in the midday heart, you can see blisters in the atmosphere. When you are in Africa, you feel primordial, rocked in the cradle of the world.”

~ Jodi Picoult

Each morning we would gather at 6h15 for coffee and a rusk before setting out on the river, cameras in hand. The weather was still in a state of considerable flux, at times it was beautifully sunny and at other times upsurges in cumulonimbus clouds provided a dramatic backdrop and at other times it was raining. This next image was taken on the boat at around 6h45 on our way upstream to explore sections of the river towards Puku flats. The soft pastel colours, fresh morning air and stillness of the river early in the morning made it feel like heaven on earth.

With the river being so high there were vast rafts of water lilies, an ideal playground for jacanas, Squacco Herons and Pygmy geese.

Early in the morning the surface of the river was like a mirror providing wonderful backgrounds. The adult African Jacana has a chestnut belly back and wings. It has a black stripe from its beak to the back of its head. The black stripe extends from the top of its head down the back of its neck. Its face and neck feathers are white with a golden necklace across the bottom of its neck. The adults have a blue facial shield which extends from its bill to the top of its head. Its legs are a golden green-grey colour.

With good backgrounds it was then just a question of looking for isolated rafts of lilies floating away from the main area and waiting for an African Jacana to fly or wander onto the raft.

“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.” 

~ Martin Buber

When  not competing for dominance of a lily patch the adult African Jacanas seemed to fly lazily between lily rafts dragging their long toes in the water, a perfect altitude measure, not a bad idea when your landing gear is that big.

The African Jacana has these long toes which spread its light load over the lily pad affording it time to feed on the lily pad before its slowly sinks.

The African Jacana seems to be undiscerning about its landing strip.

A lone water-lily flower provides a perfect landing spot.

“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

It is intriguing to see these adult African Jacanas stay just long enough on a lily pad and move off just as it starts to sink.

The Jacanas spends time foraging for snails and insects on the lily pads. They will even eat small fish if they can catch them. There is no sharing of food among adults or even between adults and chicks.

Every now and then they find something more substantial and try to swallow it after beating it to death. This particular frog was too big for the Jacana to swallow.

African Jacanas are polyandrous which means the females have multiple partners laying numerous clutches of eggs which each male then looks after. The nest is usually just a rough gathering of floating vegetation debris upon which a clutch of three to four eggs are laid. The only real protection the eggs have is their camouflage.

The male African Jacana incubates the normal clutch of three to four eggs and looks after the chicks once they are born, around 21 days after the eggs are laid. Once the chicks break their way out of the eggs they are precocial meaning they instinctively know how to feed and take care of themselves. They also instinctively know how to protect themselves. If their father is not close by and they feel threatened they dive under a water-lily pad with just their beak protruding above the surface of the water for air. Alternatively, they lie flat among the floating dead plant matter and remain dead still. Their camouflage is so good that if you did not see them move and crouch down into their stealth position the chances are you would never see them. Certainly overhead predators would never see them.

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

~Alfred Billings Street

If the chick needs to get from one water-lily raft to another a couple of metres away before its is able to fly, it just gets into the water and starts to paddle with those long toes. It is not an efficient swimmer, but gets the job done.

The chicks tend to feed close to their father who continues to look after  them for the first two weeks of their life.

I think that is remarkable that from the time this minute creature breaks its way into the world, it instinctively knows what to do. 

The chicks look quite peculiar with  long toes and small under developed wings.

The Jacana chicks instinctively look for insects and snails on the lily pads and under pieces of floating vegetation.

Despite looking like an exaggerated version of “scissor man” they seem to cope well with those exceptionally long toes.

“If there is any wisdom running through my life now, in my walking on this earth, it came from listening in the Great Silence to the stones, trees, space, the wild animals, to the pulse of all life as my heartbeat”.

~Vijali Hamilton

When the chicks are very small and less than two weeks old, their father only needs to give an alarm call and they will nestle under his wing.  If the threat is serious enough the adult male African Jacana will lift two chicks under each wing and run off across the lily pad away from the danger.

It is a very strange sight but the chicks know not to wriggle. They keep dead still under their father’s wing while being whisked away from danger. I have never seen a chick drop out from under their father’s wing.

What was quite surprising is that a pair of Blacksmith Lapwings on the river bank some 30 metres away would periodically fly across the open patch of water and attack the chicks while they were foraging. The chicks would just duck, lie flat on the floating vegetation and the lapwings would fly back to the river bank.

“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 lapwings can be dangerous attackers because they have lethal spurs on their wings which can do real damage.

There seemed to be no apparent reason for this as the lapwings did not feed on the lily pads and they did not have a nest or chicks close by.

One morning we were fortunate enough to find a family of Jacana chicks on an isolated raft of lily pads in a shaft of direct sunlight with a back water background. These are ideal lighting conditions for a wildlife photographer. It is just a question of finding the right raft of lily pads and waiting for the Jacanas to move onto them which they do for just a few minutes.

The lapwings usually attacked the chicks when they were on an isolated raft of lily pads and were exposed.

Of the many families of Jacana chicks we saw,most had three to four chicks, indicating that it had been a successful breeding season.

This chick must be have been about three weeks old, but its wings were still under developed so it had to rely on wading and swimming to get around.

With all the flooded water we saw many birds feed on frogs. This frog was small enough for the adult African Jacana to swallow once its had beaten it into submission.

We were privileged to have had wonderful photographic opportunities of African Jacanas at all stages of their development. African Jacanas are always foraging on top of lily pad rafts or in grass along the river bank. To get reasonably clear backgrounds, one needs to identify isolated lily pads and wait patiently for the Jacanas to move onto them. The next step is to look for specific backgrounds, either dark or providing specific coloured backgrounds for the Jacana chicks. Knowing what you are trying to achieve and patience are the two key ingredients.

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”

~ Henry Miller

Despite desperately looking for the less common Lesser Jacana, we did not see any so I will just have to go back next year.

“…few can sojourn long within the unspoilt wilderness of a game sanctuary, surrounded on all sides by its confiding animals, without absorbing its atmosphere; the Spirit of the Wild is quick to assert supremacy, and no man of any sensibility can resist her.”

~ James Stevenson-Hamilton

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its inter-connectedness and then let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

There are only three places I have seen Sable Antelope in southern Africa.  Many years ago, I saw a herd of Sable in the Pilanesberg Nature Reserve. There is a herd in Borokalalo Nature Reserve. I have heard there are Sable in Kruger Park but I have never seen them there. I have frequently seen Sable along the Chobe river, which flows along the northern Botswana border with Namibia. I would describe many of our antelope as beautiful but this is one antelope that I think takes the mantle of regal.

“It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know the sense of wonder and humility.”

~Rachel Carson

Just down stream from the Chobe Safari Lodge we came across this Sable nursery. Around six or seven females were looking after a large group of youngsters.  It is interesting that they have a roan colouring before they mature. They already have the white markings on their face with the black malar stripe from their eyes.

This female Sable separated from the nursery group. She was looking for a place to drink and being extra careful as away from the herd there were no extra eyes to watch for crocodiles or “flat dogs” as we like to call them.

As a Sable matures its coat changes colour from its brownish roan colour to a black with a beautiful sheen. The males begin darkening and turn black after about three years. Their facial colouring becomes more distinct.  The Sable’s underparts, cheek, and chin are all white while its back and flanks are dark brown to black. The Sable’s has a black stripe on top of its forehead and nose. The hair around its eye is dark and a dark malar stripe extends down to between its nostril and mouth. The dark colouring around the eyes is presumably to reduce glare as these antelope are diurnal.

“We still talk in terms of conquest. We still haven’t become mature enough to think of ourselves as only a tiny part of a vast and incredible universe. Man’s attitude toward nature is today critically important simply because we have now acquired a fateful power to alter and destroy nature. But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.”
~Rachel Carson

These semi-adults were very skittish coming down to drink from the Chobe river around mid-morning. One of their favourite drinking spots seemed to be Elephant Valley, which is located  upstream of the Chobe Safari Lodge. This area gives the drinkers a fairer chance against their underwater predators because the approach to the water is flat and the water is shallow.

Adult female Sable have semi-curved horns while adult bulls have full curvature horns. The horns arch backwards and are ringed. Females horns are smaller and vary between 61cm and 102cm. The male’s horns grow to between 81 and 165 cm long.

Elephant Valley is a wide drainage gully leading down to the river’s edge. There is thick vegetation either side of the gully. This is a good ambush area for predators, so at least one member of the drinking group  watches the area behind them.

The slightest disturbance triggers a flight response.

It is interesting to see this female kneeling down to drink. Sable bulls often kneel down when they fight using their head and horns to push each other around. 

“One way to open your eyes is to ask yourself, “What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew i would never see it again?”
~Rachel Carson

A Sable has a robust frame with a strong looking neck. The Sable antelope is sexually dimorphic meaning its colouring and shape looks the same. The adult males are physically bigger and have longer fully curved scimitar-shaped horns.

Sables change color as they mature. The calf is grayish-brown and almost without marks, making it very inconspicuous. As it matures and begins to take its place in a herd, its coat becomes a rich reddish-brown, with the belly, haunches and facial markings in greater contrast. At this time the face is largely white, with a wide black stripe running from the forehead to the muzzle, and black stripes from the eye to the muzzle.

It is unusual to see a lone Sable drinking down at Elephant Valley given it is an ideal ambush ally.

“We are not truly civilized if we concern ourselves only with the relation of man to man. What is important is the relation of man to all life.”
~Rachel Carson

This adult female Sable was on her way to drink from the river but was very wary around the water’s edge.

Sable antelope prefer woodland savanna areas and graze on grass in these areas and their muzzles are suited to browsing on leaves.

Sable are never found very far from water and are especially dependent upon it during the dry season which is why we regularly see Sable along the Chobe river.

Having sated his thirst, this Sable bull was strolling back into the bush alongside the Chobe river.

“Wonder and humility are wholesome emotions and they do not exist side by side with a lust for destruction.”
~Rachel Carson

A lone Sable bull drinking from a pool in Chobe National Reserve.

The same lone Sable bull alerted by a noise in the surrounding bush.

The pedestrians were impressed with the passing Sable bull.

Another lone Sable bull came down to the Chobe River to drink. He seemed unfazed by possibility of crocodiles or “flat dogs” in the water.

“Drink in the beauty and wonder at the meaning of what you see.”
~Rachel Carson

Beautiful reflection of the same Sable bull.

This large powerful Sable bull sated his thirst and strolled back into the treeline away from the openess of the riverbank. Look at the sweep of those horns, he was a mature bull. Big cats have died while fighting Sable antelope. They defend themselves from lions and other predators using their sharp scimitar-shaped horns. The Sable has a powerful and very flexible neck so when a predator attacks a Sable from behind, the Sable will arch its neck back and sweep those horns across its back. Any lion trying to hang onto the Sable’s back will get impaled. It is known that a fight to the death can be mortal for predator and prey, with a lion dead still impaled on a the dead Sable’s horns. These massive horns are very effective defensive weapons against natural predators and are used in dominance fighting.

The Sable Antelope is classified in IUCN Red List as of least concern with the population (wild and farmed) estimated at 75,000 in southern and east Africa. That said the Giant Sable is all but extinct. IUCN record total numbers of the Giant Sable surviving in 2007 at 200-400 and is classified as Critically Endangered in the IUCN Red list. The giant Sable Antelope is the national symbol of Angola and revered for its power, beauty and visual sharpness.

“Africa is mystic; it is wild; it is a sweltering inferno; it is a photographer’s paradise, a hunter’s Valhalla, an escapist’s Utopia. It is what you will, and it withstands all interpretations. It is the last vestige of a dead world or the cradle of a shiny new one. To a lot of people, as to myself, it is just ‘home’. It is all these things but one thing – it is never dull.”

~Beryl Markham

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its inter-connectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

This is a post about water lilies. They are ubiquitous along the Chobe river. I was captivated by their “lotus” type beautiful blooms, and the interesting shapes, colours and the textures of their leaves.

“Humans who spend time in the wilderness, alone, without man-made mechanical noise around them, often discover that their brain begins to recover its ability to discern things.”

~Robert Anderson

When you think of water lilies you think of Monet. Over 250 of his paintings depict his flower garden at Giverny and was the main focus of his artistic work during the last thirty years of his life. The beauty of the French village, Giverny, struck Monet when he passed through on a train. The artist was so inspired that in 1883 he rented a house there. It became his home in 1890. He was so taken by water lilies that he imported them for his Giverny garden from Egypt and South America. The local authorities were not impressed and demanded he uproot the plants before they poisoned the area’s water, but Monet ignored them.

Many years after his death, in exchange for some of Monet’s grandest works, the nation honoured him by displaying a number of them at the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris. Claude Monet, Les Nymphéas (The Water Lilies), is a suite of paintings on permanent exhibition at the Musée de l’Orangerie. Two specially made oval exhibition rooms were built to house his massive Water Lilies, creating a complete panorama of the painter’s favorite views.

“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

 There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

 There is society, where none intrudes,

 By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:

I love not Man the less, but Nature more.”

~Lord Byron

Two species of water lily occur in southern Africa. One is Nymphaea Lotus, the white water lily, or white lotus which has white or cream flowers and is widespread in tropical to southern Africa, and usually thrives in sheltered water 0.5-2.5m deep and in swamps. The other southern African species is Nymphaea Nouchali, the blue lotus.

The water lily family has five genera and about 70 species. They are  rhizomes which root themselves in  soil underneath bodies of water. Their leaves and flowers float on the surface. The leaves are round, with a radial notch in Nymphaea and Nuphar, and are fully circular in the Victoria and Euryale species.

Although African Jacanas are found foraging along all parts of the sub-equatorials river they do seem to prefer lily pad groves.

This Jacana walked past an upturned water lily pad. At times, the wind gets underneath the pad and lifts it up showing its very textured underside.

There is a reason for everything in nature,  as you would expect as your are seeing the latest evolutionary version. The leaves show many interesting adaptations to their watery environment. The margins are slightly rolled inwards toward the uppermost side which helps keep the blades afloat. The underside of the leaf, which is continually wet, has an expanded surface area due to its heavily veined structure which extends the lily pad’s capillary suction to the water and this holds the leaf flat against the water. The veins also act like a structural support for the leaves. The upper leaf surface is coated with a smooth waxy cuticle, which gives it the appearance of being leathery and shiny. This water-repellent waxy layer is of vital importance to the plant, not only to help prevent the leaf from sinking, but also to prevent the tiny stomatal pores, through which it breathes, from becoming clogged with dust. When water splashes onto the leaf surface, it forms rounded droplets that roll across the surface cleaning up the dust as they go. Clean dust free leaves are also better able to photosynthesise effectively

The underside of water lily pads present themselves in a vast array of colours from yellow  to deep purple and maroon.

A grove of water lilies. Their flowers close at night and open to greet the sun.

Waterways are apparent through the lilies where hippos, elephants and boats have passed.

The African Jacana relies on the water lilies for food and a degree of support when it is walking across the water, but some of them show little respect for the support systems.

Water lilies are spring and summer bloomers that create a single elaborate and beautiful flower.

The beautiful Pygmy Goose’s main diet is the seeds of water lilies and it is one of it key dispersants. It eats the seed pods and fruit of water-dwelling plants, especially water lilies, using a variety of foraging techniques such as surface feeding and diving.

 As the water lily flower becomes waterlogged, the closed lotus flower sinks into the mud to germinate.

“Nature’s own masterpieces will never go away. If I am able to cast just a few of them in favourable light, and convince you, the viewer, to look at them again with greater appreciation and perhaps a fresh perspective, then I have succeeded as an artist.”

~Scott L. Christensen

Some water lily leaves are purple underneath, the pigments help to 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 open water lily blooms attract a variety of insects which the Jacanas find appealing.

Its the variety of natural shapes, textures and colours which are so beguiling to photographers.

“Art takes nature as its model.”

~Aristotle

The lily pads can be as dramatic as the flowers, in both shape and colour.

Water lilies provide shade and hiding places for fish and other water animals. Often when threatened, Jacana chicks will dive under the water lily pad and have just their beaks above the water so that they can breath.

There are numerous flies, beetles and snails which are found on the water lily pads all of which both Jacanas, Crakes and Squacco Herons seem to find edible.

Water lilies prefer calm water and it is in this calm water that photographers find art in nature.

“There is unspeakable beauty and potential to be found in nature. It entices me and is an invitation I just have to accept.”

~Jil Ashton-Leigh

The large, elegant blue flowers are held well above the water at the tip of a sturdy green stalk and appear almost constantly from spring until the end of summer. They are bisexual, star-like, with 4 sepals, green on the outside and white to blue on the inside, with many blue petals. In the centre of the flower are numerous blue-tipped bright golden yellow stamens. There are colour forms other than blue that occasionally occur, e.g. white, mauve and pink.

Water lilies are herbaceous and obviously baboons find them tasty salad ingredients.

Water lilies have many uses. African Jacanas gather the stems of water lily plants together to form a tangled raft on which they lay their well camouflaged eggs. The chicks are precocial when born and are able to fend for themselves almost immediately so the nest does not have to be long lasting.

Once pollinated the Nymphaea lotus flower stem tightens in a spiralling spring to bring the flower head underwater. The fruit develops underwater into a spongy berry with many seeds that are enclosed in arils. When ripe, up to 2,000 seeds are released from each fruit. Young seeds float as they contain air pockets. They are then dispersed by water currents or by water birds that eat them.

I hope this post has given you, in some small sense, the wonderfully integrated web of life around humble water lilies.

“To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter; to be thrilled by the stars at night: to be elated over a bird’s nest or a wildflower in spring… these are some of the rewards of the simple life.”

~John Burroughs

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

Have fun,

Mike

I wanted to show you a few of the cameo sightings from our trip in April this year, with CNP Safaris, wandering along the Chobe river between Kasane and Serondela.

“Looking is not seeing. Engaging with the world as a photographer means we need to keep not only our eyes open, but also our mind and soul. Reality does not exist. Each of us makes our own reality. Perception, which might start with visual stimuli, is filtered by our mental templates, preconceptions, memories and experiences.”

~ Raphael Rojas

Dawn – sublime, quiet and infused with soft pastel coloured light.

Colours change as the sun rises.

Unique fishing technique of the Black Heron.

Those distinctive yellow feet of the Black Heron.

Male baboon pauses to listen while drinking from the river.

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

Young baboon playing with his new toy alongside the river.

Cute, naughty and smug.

There is so much behaviour we recognise!

 Steep banks lined with Jackalberry trees just down river from  Elephant Valley.

A female Giant Kingfisher, with her chestnut belly, bathed in afternoon light staring intently at the water for her next meal.

Emerald flying gems  – there one day and gone the next.

White-fronted Bee-eaters  fighting over nesting spots.

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

Aerial combat Bee-eater style.

Undisputed avian ruler along the Chobe. 

White-crowned Lapwing stretching in preparation for flight.

Striding along this log declaring its territorial imperative.

Pied Kingfisher offering.

Too close – this White-breasted Cormorant needed more space.

Flooded grasslands along the Chobe in April.

“Photograph: a picture painted by the sun without instruction in art.”
~ Ambrose Bierce

Woodland Kingfisher’s perch hunting insects above the water.

Water lilies seem to make a tasty baboon salad.

Hang on where you can.

Interested but impossible

“You can look at a picture for a week and never think of it again. You can look at a picture for a second and think of it all your life.”

~Joan Miro

Reed Cormorant drying itself in the warm morning sun after a fishing expedition.

Hanging out to dry.

Old “dagga boy’s” grooming team at work.

Red-billed Oxpeckers undertake their daily grooming chores on this old warrior.

This sleek, elegant female Sable Antelope came down to the river on her own for an afternoon drink.

Youthful female with tinges of ochre still showing in her coat.

Successful Sable stable.

“My life is shaped by the urgent need to wander and observe, and my camera is my passport.”
~ Steve McCurry

Late afternoon look out.

Fish Eagle at full stretch as it takes off.

Massive powerful wings.

River dragon surfaces.

Lilac-breasted Roller in full diversionary attack.

Banking hard in full colourful display.

Beach monitor sunbathing.

Delicate and posed Malachite Kingfisher.

“We photographers do not photograph subjects, but rather the light reflected from them. This is why if we want to reach those subtle and magical moments which are happening all the time around us, we need to develop this sensitivity to be able to see them.” 

~ Raphael Rojas

Late afternoon sky ablaze with colour.

The sun setting beyond the horizon saturates the evening sky with glorious colours.

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

“Photographing the world means making statements about it, and if we want our statements to be meaningful we need to fully absorb what is around us, understand the way it affects us and then explore ways to communicate that effectively through photography.”

~ Raphael Rojas

Have fun,

Mike

One of the special sightings on the Chobe river at specific times of the year are Pygmy Geese. On one of our photographic safaris with CNP Safaris, Lou Coetzer nicknamed these birds ” pocket rockets” because of the speed with which they take flight away from you.

“It’s an illusion that photos are made with the camera….they are made with the eye, heart and head.”
~Henri Cartier-Bresson

You will find three types of geese on the Chobe river, the large Spur-winged and Egyptian geese and the diminutive African Pygmy Goose. The Pygmy is the smallest of the three and is very different  not only in size, but flight and its nesting habits. Geese are different to ducks in that they have hind toes and claws on their webbed toes.  This gives them the ability to perch and in some instances climb in trees.

You are only likely to find Pygmy Geese on the Chobe between the months of November and April. There is sexual dimorphism where the male is altogether more colourful. When calling, the male is usually the more vocal of the two  giving a twittering whistle and bobbing his head.

The male has a white face with black eye ring. He has an iridescent black crown which extends down the back of its neck. A particularly striking feature is the powder green patch extending from the ear down to the centre of its neck. The upper half of the fore neck is white and forms an open collar around the neck. Below its white collar extending down its neck, breast and belly is light chestnut coloured. The flanks are more intensely chestnut coloured and the back is metallic green.

Females have a white face with some grey spots, and obvious black areas beneath the eyes. The face of the male is more obviously white, and has green areas. The bodies of both have a tinge of red on the under carriage, with green markings on the rest of the body.

All birds of the family Anatidae (ducks, geese, and swans) have a nail, which is a plate of hard horny tissue at the tip of the beak. This nail is shield-shaped structure, and in some species spans the entire width of the beak, and is often bent at the tip to form a hook. The nail serves different purposes depending on the bird’s primary food source. In the case of the Pygmy Goose, its nail is probably used for digging seeds out of water lilies.

“When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs.
When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.” 
~ Ansel Adams

The Pygmy Goose has small wide wings for rapid low level flight unlike their larger cousins which have longer wings for higher altitude, more sedate flight. The secondary feathers on its wings help identify them in flight, but there low level high flight pattern is a dead give away.

African Pygmy Geese feed on waterlily seeds and are one of the main distributors of their seed. When photographing Pygmy Geese you will often find them in small groups comprising three or four pairs. I am not sure why but invariably the female takes off first. This becomes the marker for our photographic anticipation. She normally gives you no warning so you need lightning quick reactions.

The African Pygmy Goose is somewhat nomadic and partially migratory, making local dry-season movements dictated by habitat and water availability or dispersing to favoured moulting areas.

If this little goose feels threatened it will either fly or dive depending on the nature of the threat. It is an adept diver and can escape an  overhead threat by diving and swimming away some distance before surfacing.

“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”
~ Henry David Thoreau

It is devilishly difficult to get your timing right when these little “pocket rockets” decide to take off. When you get a reasonable image of them it is hugely rewarding.

Pygmy geese are at home in trees as in the water.

The African Pygmy goose nests in natural hollows or the disused holes in trees, preferably those standing in or close to water. It also occasionally nests in other cavities such as holes in cliffs or termites mounds or a chamber in a Hammerkop’s nest. The female lays up to nine eggs usually between November and February each year.

Thankfully this waterfowl gem has a has an extremely large range, and hence is not considered vulnerable though it numbers  are decreasing.

“Never forget: We are alive within mysteries”.
~Wendell Berry

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

Have fun,

Mike

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