This is the fourth post from our August trip with Coetzer Nature Photography (CNP) to Chobe. August is the last of the winter period in Southern Africa. This means that the endemics and residents are around but not the migrants. This post shows off the feathers of those who stay during winter.

“Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever… it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything”.

 – Aaron Siskind

Travelling by boat up to Serondela, we saw this African Harrier-Hawk close to Buffalo bend. I much prefer the old name “Gymnogene”. It conjours up an image of something unusual. Given its predatory habits and double-jointed legs, it is unusual. It’s very broad wings allow it to fly slowly along the river bank hunting for prey. This character stopped in front of us to have a drink of water.

This is probably one of the most feared and hated birds along the river’s edge because it raids other birds nests.

As the water level had been falling since June, many barbel seemed to have been caught on the grass islands. This made easy pickings for Marabou Storks and Fish Eagles alike. This Fish Eagle took an exception to an opportunistic Marabou Stork invading his personal space.

In the scurry, an Egyptian Goose was madly scrabbling out of the way. The Fish Eagle was just scaring the Marabou away. There was no major fight.

Down at Elephant Valley, you are likely to see at least one Red-billed Spurfowl come down to drink. You don’t normally seem them in South Africa, only in Botswana and the northern half of Namibia.

They are very wary and easily scared off – running away at break-neck speed and seeming to prefer running rather than flying, though they are good short distance fliers.

Jewel in the reeds. This little Malachite Kingfisher had just caught a small fish. A big mouthful for such a small bird. You will find these jewels along the sand banks exposed as the river subsides.

It did not try to swallow its catch straight away so was probably taking it back to its mate at the nest site. The low contrast in the image indicates that it was perched in the shade of the bank.

“To learn the magic of light, get up before sunrise…and watch”.

– Ted Grant

We nickname the Marabou Stork “Doctor Death” as it often sits on the tops of trees in the evening waiting for darkness. They look like the night’s undertakers waiting to get to work. A pair of Marabou were fighting over a strand of grass – this gives you a sense of how busy it was in that area that morning!?!

The Marabou Stork has got to be one of the ugliest birds on the Chobe. It is that pink head and neck  and almost bald head with scruffy strands of hair (or perhaps very thin feathers) sticking out.

It was cold that morning so this Marabou  tucked its bare neck into its fleecy jacket. It kept a beady eye on us as we went passed.

The Grey-headed Gulls were back. They are really good fishermen, easily as good as the Yellow-billed Kites.

We saw surprisingly few Giant Kingfishers on this trip. Although the male and female superficially look the same, the male has a chestnut breast, white belly with black spots and white under wing coverts.

The female has a white breast with black spots and chestnut belly with chestnut underwing coverts. The Giant Kingfisher below is a juvenile female and was being spooked by every bird that flew overhead. She was sitting on a sand bank with grass all around, so could not see anything coming and consequently got a fright each time a bird flew passed. With each scare she would spread her wings to look bigger and more aggressive.

The iconic Fish Eagle. There are many pairs resident along the river from Kasane down to Serondela. I defy any photographer not to want to take shots of these majestic raptors.

I have always seen Yellow-billed Storks as placid birds. No so that day.

The aggressor was not having another feeding on his turf. Those big wings give them considerable lift when they need it.

These large Yellow-billed Storks seemed quite happy catching “tiddlers”. There were probably no large fish around.

This female Saddle-billed Stork was standing on one leg in reasonably strong wind hence the feathers on her back rising – quite incredible balance. The female has the yellow eye-ring and no yellow wattle under her chin. The male’s eye is black with no yellow eye-ring. We did not see the male.

A White-faced Whistling Duck coming in to land. Who needs air brakes when you have feet like that. Normally you would see the alula extended.

“Of what use are lens and light to those who lack in mind and sight? “

– Anonymous

Young and scruffy looking White-faced Whistling Duck coming in to land.

It was too early in the season for the Carmine Bee-eaters but we always love watching these Little bee-Eaters. They are exquisitely beautiful and skilful hunters.

The African Darter is also known as the “Snake bird’. It is that flexible neck which gives it its snake-like appearance.

“A wise old owl sat on an oak;

The more he saw the less he spoke;

The less he spoke the more he heard;

Why aren’t we like that wise old bird?”

– Edward Hersey Richards

Lilac-breasted Roller displaying – its colours are exquisite and its rolling displays even more impressive.

Three is a crowd – the male in the middle could not break this pair’s bond, but the threesome provided a spell binding sighting.

I have seen young Jacana’s tucked under their father’s wing. I have seen them under the water using their beaks as a snorkel but I did not know they could swim so well.

This young African Jacana casually stepped into the water and swam just like a duck – amazing.

Trying to photograph flying Jacana’s is a photographic necessity but the backgrounds can be problematic!!!

“Nature is so powerful, so strong. Capturing its essence is not easy – your work becomes a dance with light and weather. It takes you to a place within yourself”.

 – Annie Leibovitz

Common Sandpiper searching for food along the river’s edge – bobbing as its went along. I use its white shoulder patch as my main identification marker.

Young Black-winged Stilt – the tendons in those spindly legs must be very strong.

The Glossy Ibis is every bit as beautiful as its cousins – thankfully it is quiet unlike it Hadeda cousin.

“Catching some rays” – this Spoonbill was drying its wings. I have seen Fish Eagles and Bateleurs do the same thing.

The birdlife along the Chobe is something to behold. The sightings and photographic opportunities are always prolific, which makes this a premier destination for any birder or photographer.

“The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream.

The oak sleeps in the acorn,

the bird waits in the egg,

and in the highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs.

Dreams are the seedlings of realities”.

– James Allen

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

Have fun

Mike

At first take Buffaloes and Skimmers might seem an unlikely combination for a post on African wildlife. Stay with me and I will explain why they can been seen together. We have just returned from a terrific five days on the Chobe River with Wenzel Kotze from Coetzer Nature Photography. Being early August, we did not expect to see migratory birds as it was too early, but the river level has fallen from its peak around May-June. Once the river level falls a number of different behavioural changes occur among the wildlife along the Chobe River.

Last week was characterised by river crossings. The main mammals crossing the river were Elephant and Buffaloes. I will post a separate set of images on the Elephants. In this post I want to focus on Buffaloes and Skimmers.

I saw more Buffaloes on this trip along the Chobe than ever before. I also saw an usually large number of Waterbuck and Spurwing Geese. The Spurwings tend to congregate along the Chobe during July and August in great numbers. This is probably because their breeding season starts around August and the river level has fallen enough for them to start feeding on the aquatic vegetation on the islands.

There were also large herds of Buffalo feeding along the side of the river and on its islands.

One morning, still reasonably early, a herd of about 100 Buffalo on Chobe island decided to cross the river to Skimmer island on route to the mainland. Once the lead Buffalo starts to cross the river and the rest follow. Unlike Wildebeest, Buffaloes have no hesitation when they reach the river. By the way there are no Wildebeest along the Chobe river, near Kasane.

The Buffalo seem to be acutely aware of the dangers lurking in the waters of the Chobe river, but it does not stop them.

There are very big Nile Crocodiles (” flat dogs” as we like to call them) in the Chobe river. On a previous occasion we saw one very large croc. waiting in the channel between Skimmer island and the mainland for individual animals to cross. Normally, the Buffalo cross the river as a herd giving them safety in numbers but stragglers are vulnerable, usually the old bulls, which we like to call “dagger boys” because they often dig there bosses into the mud leaving big clods of mud caked on their horns.

I was astounded how fast the Buffalo could swim. I did not think they were well adapted for fast swimming but I was wrong. They ‘doggy paddle” but are proficient fast swimmers.

There are a lot of Nile Crocodiles in the Chobe river. This was one of the bigger ones. You can tell he is huge by the size of the muscles  at the base of his jaw. His body length, excluding tail, must have been well over two metres

A croc would need to be a seriously big to attempt to take a Buffalo and I have never heard of an adult Buffalo being taken by a croc. Thankfully, we did not see the crocs taking any of the Buffalo that crossed the river that day.

The herd which crossed to Skimmer island did not waste time but moved across the island and quickly crossed the channel separating Skimmer island from the mainland.

Unfortunately, we could not get onto the other side of the herd to get better light on the Buffalo but you get a sense of the drama of the crossing. There are no ifs, buts or maybes – the herd moved headlong into the channel with purpose. I have been fortunate enough to get to the Chobe many times, but this was my first sighting of a Buffalo herd  crossing the river.

Skimmer island is so-called because the African Skimmers prefer to roost and nest on islands or sandbars such as this.

“To photograph is to hold one’s breath, when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality. It’s at that precise moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.”

~Henri Cartier-Bresson

Skimmers are beautiful, lithe fliers. They have very long wings shaped for speed and manoeuvrability. Skimmers are intra-African migrants and come back to Chobe once the water levels subside exposing sandbars like Skimmer island.

Their wings are long  and narrow allowing them to use their unique feeding technique.  They feed on fish which they catch by flying very low over the water surface with their lower mandible cutting through the water. They have a unique bill in the bird world where the bottom mandible is longer than the top one. They drag their lower mandible through the water effectively trawling for fish close to the surface, hence the name Skimmer.

Ideally, they need smooth water to skim over. As soon as they hit something their neck flexes. As you can imagine this seems to be a dangerous way to hunt for fish because it could hit a small floating piece of wood or croc but their necks are incredibly flexible and their bill recoils under their body. The lower mandible is perpetually growing because the abrasion wears down the lower mandible.

The evenings are an ideal time to see them skimming as the water is calm and in the setting sun illuminates their hunting ground in wonderful, soft golden colours. Skimmers do a lot of their fishing at night.

Skimmers also seem to love flying and often do incredible aerobatic manoeuvres when sparring together.

Skimmers are syndactyl meaning their toes are partially webbed and have a non functional back toe preventing them from easily perching on branches and so they stand on the ground rather than perch on trees when they roost. Skimmers nest on the ground and are therefore vulnerable to passing “river crossers”.

A few days after the first Buffalo river crossing a small coalition of  Buffalo bulls crossed from the mainland onto Skimmer island to get onto the main Chobe island.

Elephants also cross onto Skimmer island on route to the Chobe island or mainland. This intrusion causes much alarm to the Skimmers as their nests and eggs are very vulnerable. The Skimmers soon started attacking the Buffalo in much the same way that Lapwings attack intruders, regardless of their size.

After relentless mobbing by the Skimmers, the Buffalo bulls decided to move on and cross the channel to the main Chobe island.

The Buffalo are plagued by millions of midges constantly flying around them. To provide some skin protection from biting insects, the Buffalo roll in the mud ensuring a thick coating of mud. They never seem to get the mud in their eyes and even with a thick coating of mud the midges continue to buzz around them, but there must be some relief from bites and their associated skin irritations.

Buffalo are tricky to photograph because they are usually so dark in contrast with their surroundings. In order to get full light in their eyes, early morning seems to be the ideal time to photograph them. More often than not they are in herds so you need to isolate your subject to simplify the composition. They can be very sedentary endlessly grazing or lying and chewing the cud, so wait for some interaction, the timing is everything.

Rivers have what man most respects and longs for in his own life

—a capacity for renewal and replenishment, continual energy, creativity, cleansing.

— John Kauffman

To Wenzel Kotze and CNP, thanks very much for a wonderful five days on the Chobe river. The opportunities were superb with the only photographic limitation being me!!

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

Have fun

Mike

This is the last post from my recent trip with Coetzer Nature Photography (CNP) in mid-March on the Chobe River. This post shows a selection of Kingfishers which we photographed along the Chobe River.

“We are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders.”

― G.K. Chesterton

Kingfishers are a group of brightly coloured, small to medium-sized birds. There are about 90 species of Kingfisher, worldwide. They all have large heads, sharp, pointed and long beaks, short and wide wings, short legs, and stubby tails. Kingfishers nest in burrows, which are usually tunnelled into the natural river banks. In Africa, the smallest species is the African Dwarf Kingfisher, weighing in at just over 10 grams and the largest is the Giant Kingfisher, which weighs in at around  350 grams.

Civilization no longer needs to open up wilderness; it needs wilderness to help open up the still largely unexplored human mind.

- David Rains Wallace

The main focus of this post is to show you some images of Kingfishers taken along the Chobe river from CNP’s exceptional floating photographic platform. There are some features about Kingfishers which are I think are remarkable and want to share with you. I discuss these features at the end of this post.

Chobe’s Kingfishers

We start with the smallest and work up in size. We did not see any Pygmy Kingfishers, which are identified by their very small size and the mauve ear coverts. These little gems are usually found in woodland areas where they hunt for insects. These midgets are uncommon. The African Pygmy Kingfisher is approximately 12–13 cm in length. It is a very small Kingfisher with rufous underparts and a blue back extending down to the tail. The dark blue crown of the adult separates it from the African Dwarf Kingfisher. The smaller size and mauve wash on the ear coverts distinguish it from the similar Malachite Kingfisher.

Much more common is the Malachite Kingfisher. These minute Kingfishers sparkle in the sunlight. They are excellent fishermen and usually hunt from a reed or branch overhanging the water. They fly at great speed between perches and dive into the water blindingly fast without hurting themselves. We usually see them along the reed beds of the island which splits the river just upstream of the lodges, especially on that part of the river as you return to the lodges passed the Namibian stilt village.

These Kingfishers are only slightly larger than the Pygmy Kingfisher but are conspicuous because of their gem-like vibrant royal-blue coloured back and nape feathers.

We were fortunate to see Grey-headed Kingfishers on two occasions. These elegant little Kingfishers are not often seen along the river as they are insectivores which feed in the woodland areas much like the Pygmy Kingfishers.

The Brown-hooded Kingfisher is about 20% larger than the Grey-headed Kingfisher. It is commonly found along the Chobe river. It is also mainly an insectivore but will occasionally catch fish.

We did not see any Striped Kingfishers although they are resident along the river. They are slightly smaller than the Brown-hooded Kingfisher and have striped breast feathers and a dual-coloured bill, black upper mandible and red lower mandible.

We did not get to see any Half-collared Kingfishers either but there are  two pairs which frequent the branches and reeds overhanging  the river around the Chobe Safari lodge.

The Woodland Kingfisher has stunning cobalt blue back, tail and primary wing feathers. The male and female look the same. Their trilling call is ubiquitous in the woodland areas along the Chobe river. These are also insectivores. 

The Mangrove Kingfisher superficially looks like the Woodland but is only found in the mangrove swamps along the coats and does not have the same black eye strip and its head and neck is greyer. 

The Pied Kingfishers were very successful hunters on the river. The male and female have similar colouring but there breast patterns are different. The female has black bra cups and the male a black waistcoat.

One of the things which always surprises me is how these Kingfishers manage to swallow such large prey without choking.

The Giant and Half-collared Kingfishers are perch hunters, though the Giant is known to hover but not for long and not without a reasonable headwind. The only Kingfisher which regularly hovers is the Pied. You will notice that the Pied Kingfisher keeps its head absolutely still while hovering to establish pin-point accuracy before diving. Pied Kingfishers usually dive with the sun behind them making it more difficult for their prey so see them properly. I have never been close or quick enough to see it, but Trevor Carnaby’s “Beat about the Bush – birds” indicates that Kingfishers keep their eyes open during the dive. The long bill acts like a rifle sight and the Kingfisher has a unique eye structure to accommodate the shock wave when entering the water. Their nictitating membrane covers their eyeballs like built-in goggles. Once in the water the Kingfisher snatches it quarry in its bill rather than stabbing it.

The Giant Kingfisher is frequently seen along the Chobe river during summer. The male and female both have similar colouring but their patterning is different. The male has a russet-brown chest and the female a russet-brown belly. These Kingfishers are noticeably larger than the others but just as striking in colouration as the smaller Kingfishers, with their white, black and russet-browns. They do not have the blues seen in the smaller Kingfishers.. 

We did not get close enough to get great shots of Giant Kingfishers during our five days on the Chobe river but they are much more active in the summer months .

The earth has music for those who listen.

- William Shakespeare

Some remarkable adaptations

Kingfishers are some of the most brightly coloured birds along the river alongside the bee-eaters. These are stunningly adorned birds, but these remarkable birds also have some of the most fascinating natural adaptions.

Hunting: As their name suggests they are associated with hunting and eating fish. While some species specialise in catching fish, many feed on insects, crabs, small reptiles and worms. Kingfishers catch their prey between their mandibles rather than harpoon their prey. Once they have caught their prey they usually fly to a perch and beat it to death against the branch or rock. This helps break up insect coats, small fish bones, and invertebrate exoskeletons.

Most Kingfishers hunt from a perch and are highly territorial.

Eyesight: According to the British Journal of Opthalmology, evolution has resulted in specialised adaptations to fit specialised niches. Unlike humans, many avian predators, including Kingfishers have two foveae (or centers of focus) in each eye, and these two foveae enable them see both forwards and to the side at the same time. The position of the nasal monocular fovea tends to be fairly constant in all bifoveate birds, but the temporal fovea is different. The two foveae in kingfishers have very large angles of separation which measure up to 52° compared to 15° in Eagles and Kites. This anatomical separation means that the binocular foveae are sighted along the beak much like laser sighting of a gun. The deep fovea has a line of sight that points forwards and about 45 degrees to the left or right of the head axis, and the shallow fovea has a line of sight that points forward but only covers about 15 degrees to the left or right. Of the two centers of focus, the deep fovea has the higher acuity.

Presumably, a Kingfisher will sight its prey with the higher acuity nasal monocular fovea. As the bird drops towards its prey, acuity becomes less critical but the ability to see prey movement, especially in the three dimensional world of water, becomes paramount. The infula or visual streak which connects the two foveae allows the image to swing temporally as the bird drops onto the prey, and if the prey moves, the temporal fovea senses the difference in position and the Kingfisher can adjust accordingly. Their twin fovea allow them to very accurately judge the distance to a prey item by turning their head slightly.

Apart from the unusual configuration of their twin fovae, Kingfishers, as do all birds, have coloured oil droplets located in the inner segments of retinal cones.  Birds have coloured oil droplets with four to five different types of visual pigment. These coloured oil droplets function as long-pass filters which absorb photons below a specific wavelength. Current evidence suggests that oil droplets not only enhance colour vision, but also reduce chromatic aberration and glare.

Many avian species that must look through water for their prey, such as Kingfishers, have a preponderance of red oil droplets. The reason red droplets predominate is not understood, but it is thought that the droplets may help with the glare or the dispersion of light from particulate matter in the water.

Hovering: When hovering 12–15 metres above their prey, Pied Kingfishers have an unusual problem. The simultaneous movement of the fish and of the bird as it hovers would normally create a neurological nightmare. The solution produces a dramatic real life aerial dance for those who have witnessed it. The Pied Kingfisher is the only species that is mainly pelagic, and during its hover before the plunge-dive it keeps its head rock steady relative to the movements of wing and body. Curiously, the depth of the prey will vary the form of the plunge-dive. The deeper the prey, the steeper the dive angle (with achieved speed as high as 4.5 m/s), perhaps to reduce the effects of refraction on the apparent position of the prey.

In order to remain in sync with the fish’s exact co-ordinates the Kingfisher must keep its head almost entirely motionless, allowing the wings and counterbalancing tail do all the work. When ready the Kingfisher strikes, performing a controlled vertical dive to ensure its dart-like bill is the first thing to enter the water. Though sharp and streamlined, it still generates shockwaves through the water that can startle a fish, so speed is of the essence. The difference between the Kingfisher catching its prize or not can come down to a matter of a mere 50th of a second! If the fish reacts within that time, it is likely to dart out of harm’s way and the hunter will go hungry.

Environmental conditions affect which type of fishing behaviour birds use. In windier conditions, the Pied will use hover-plunge most of the time and perch-plunge  when conditions are calm and where there are available perches.

Long beaks: Kingfishers’  long, dagger-like bills are functionally more like rifle sights than harpoons. The shape of the Kingfisher’s beak is perfectly adapted for penetrating the water at high speed without creating a massive turbulence which would reduce the hunting success rate.  They prefer to hunt over still or slow moving water using a favourite perch to scan the shallows for small fish. They rely on their eyesight to help them accurately target a fish, then dive beneath the surface to catch it.

The Grey-headed, Mangrove Malachite and Pygmy Kingfishers have red beaks, while the Half-collared, Pied and Giant Kingfishers have black beaks. The Woodland and Striped Kingfishers have a black upper mandible and red lower mandible. I am still trying to find out the reason for these colouration differences. My initial thoughts are the aquatic Kingfishers have the black bills to reduce glare, but I am not sure.

Feet: While their hunting adaptations are amazing, the Kingfisher’s strangest adaptation is used for digging its nest burrow in a sandy embankment.  Kingfishers use the beaks are their primary digging instruments but their inner two toes are fused together, resulting in what appears be a single flattened toe, which helps with the scrapping of dirt out of the tunnel. This toe characteristic is called syndactyly. It is uncommon and only shared with kangaroos, wallabies, opossums, koalas and wombats.

Biomimicry: After several failed attempts to sufficiently mitigate the noise of high-speed trains, the designers took a cue from nature. Noting that the usual shape of the Kingfisher’s head, large with a long, narrow bill, which enabled it to dive from the air into the water with minimal splashing. The designers ran a series of wind tunnel tests, ultimately concluding that the design of the kingfisher’s bill was ideal for transitioning from air to water, and could also be used for reducing the air friction and sonic boom caused by speeding trains moving into and out of tunnels. Mimicking the design of the Kingfisher for the nose cone of future train engines, the Shinkansen trains have successfully overcome the problem of compliance with Japan’s strict noise pollution standards.  By looking at the wonders of nature, which is always all around us, the bullet train designers were able to take the lessons they had learned and solve an important problem. It makes you wonder what other problems have answers to be found in nature, right in front of our eyes and just waiting to be discovered.

Preen oil: Like ducks and other waterbirds, the feathers of a Kingfisher are smeared with a special preen oil that helps to keep them waterproof when diving into the water. After any activity which might make feathers dirty, like digging a nest burrow in a sandy bank, they always take a quick bath to keep their feathers in good condition.

As you can see there is much more to our feather fishers than meets the eye.

The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.

- Marcel Proust

Seek to understand nature, marvel at its interconnectedness and then let it be

Have fun

Mike

Excuse the play on words in the title. No sane person would wade in the Chobe river. It is seething with Nile Crocodiles, some of which are ‘shudderingly’ massive. At first thought you might regard waders as a common and a somewhat boring group of birds. You could not be more wrong.

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
  And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
  Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
  And Eternity in an hour.”

― William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

Waders are ubiquitous along the Chobe river. This group includes Storks, Flamingoes, Cranes, Egrets, Spoonbills, Openbills, Sandpipers, Rails, Gallinules, Ibises, Avocets, Herons and Hamerkops. You will be astounded at the complexity in their flight, their behaviour, their different methods of hunting and how they all work together along the river. Since this post is about the Chobe river, I have excluded any discussion on seashore waders.

For starters, waders have a number of distinctive characteristics:

• Long legs: All wading birds have long legs and long agile toes.
• Long bill:  Most waders have long bills and many have specialised bill shapes for specific feeding techniques.
• Long neck: Many have long, agile necks which can extend significantly when attacking prey.
• Elaborate plumage: Many develop elaborate plumes during breeding season especially Herons, Egrets and Cranes. Larger waders are conspicuously coloured while small waders usually have good camouflage.

Waders also have an number of common distinguishable behavioral traits:

• Foraging: Many waders can stand motionless for long periods while hunting waiting for prey to come within striking distance. Their attack mode is often achieved by extending their necks at high speed and stabbing their prey.
• Communities: Many waders rest at night in communal  roosts and move around in mixed flocks.
• Diurnal: Most waders are diurnal, meaning they are active during the day. Some are crepuscular being most active at twilight and others like Night Herons are noctural.
• Flight: Most waders fly with their long legs extended back passed their tail feathers. Some waders with especially long necks either extend or contract their necks in flight. Herons and Egrets tend to retract their necks while Storks and Cranes extend their necks during flight. It is thought that they do this for axial balance in flight. Herons and Egrets retract their necks to achieve balance as their centre of gravity which is located at or close to the shoulder joint which articulates with the axial skeleton. Herons and Egrets are much lighter and have less body mass behind the wing. These waders are relative light-weights for such tall, long-legged birds compared to Storks and Cranes.  They  vary the length of their neck in flight so the mass of their heads and bill to balance the weight of their long legs and body at their centre of gravity.

“It doesn’t stop being magic just because you know how it works.”

― Terry Pratchett The wee free men

I have arranged the wader images in this post from smallest to largest birds.

Eleven Sandpipers are found in southern Africa, with seven being coastal birds and four being found mostly inland. All four inlanders are summer visitors and palearctic migrants. Of the inlanders, the Common, Curlew and Wood Sandpipers are most widely dispersed and most frequently seen. The Green Sandpiper is usually found in Zimbabwe and the eastern parts of Botswana and the Limpopo province in South Africa. The next two images are of a Common Sandpiper which has a diagnostic white pectoral region showing above its folded wing. This little bird could be mistaken for a Wood Sandpiper but it does not have a distinctive white eyebrow of the Wood Sandpiper.

The Sandpiper has a short bill for probing  the mud and sand along the water’s edge. It is not a stalker and stabber like Herons and Egrets.

I am always awed by the fact that these small ( 20cm ) birds can not only fly to Europe and back but can accurately navigate that long journey each year.

“In my travels I found no answers, only wonders.”

 ― Marty Rubin

Of the rail family, I have only ever seen Black Crakes and Allen’s Gallinules along the Chobe River. This trip we were fortunate to see a pair of Allen’s Gallinule adults with two chicks. The adults are exquisitely coloured birds. Their camouflage from above must be excellent given their greeny-brown back and wing feathers which must blend in well in the reeds.

In nature there is a reason for everything. On the boat, we wondered what the reason was for  young Gallinules having black and white striped beaks. None of us knew. The adults have large red feet which enable them to easily traverse the reeds.

Many Cattle Egrets can be found along the Chobe river feeding on insects disturbed by foraging Elephant and Buffalo or on insects attracted by Hippos. The pinky-beige feathers on its crown, neck and back are the Cattle Egret’s breeding plumage. Egrets, similar to Herons and Bitterns and even Parrots and pigeons,  have specialised feathers which produce ‘powder down’. The ends of their feathers fray creating a powder which is spread during preening and is thought to improve the preening and waterproofing of the bird’s feathers.

We found  a small group of Black-crowned Night-Herons down near Serondela. These birds are crepuscular and noctural so you are only likely to see them in the late afternoon when they become more active. For the rest of the day they sit in deep shade, probably sleeping. Night Herons,  just like Green-backed Herons, mainly operate during the late afternoon and at night.

This Green-backed Heron was hunting from a low branch hanging over the water near Serondela. It is astounding how long they can stretch to attack their prey. They are also very wary and do not let you get too close so that 600mm lens is a necessity. The Green-backed Heron has been known to bait it prey with insects

Squacco Herons are ubiquitous along the Chobe river. They operate along the river’s shoreline, on rafts of water-lily pads and in the reeds.

These small but beautiful Herons tend to fly with their necks retracted and are mainly daytime hunters, catching small fish and insects. The Squacco, and the seldom seen Rufuous-bellied, Heron sway their heads from side to side. It has been suggested that the purpose of this swaying may be to disturb prey, as well as to adjust for the slight parallax, helping the Egret to visually localize the prey. You will also see Little Egrets doing the same thing.

One of the most striking of the small Herons is the Black Heron which was previously called the Black Egret. It has dark charcoal-grey feathers and its bright yellow feet give it the appearance of having stepped in some wet yellow road-marking paint.

What makes this bird unique apart from its stunning colouring is its hunting technique. It uses its wings as an umbrella. It is thought that fish and frogs swim into the shaded area under the umbrella formation of the wings associating the shaded area with protection.

The Little Egret is identified by its size. It is pure white and has black legs and yellow feet. It also looks like it has walked in a puddle of wet yellow road-marking paint. These are stealthy hunters which operate along the river’s edge, preying on small fish, frogs and insects.

A yellow-billed Egret flew passed us but kept a weary eye on us.

This Yellow-billed Egret was carrying a small frog its bill, an opportunity which had not gone unnoticed by a following Carmine Bee-eater.

“We can never sneer at the stars, mock the dawn, or scoff at the totality of being.”

― Abraham Joshua Heschel

You can find four types of Ibis in southern Africa, the Bald-headed, Glossy, Hadeda and Sacred ibis. All but the Sacred Ibis are commonly found in the northern and eastern regions of southern Africa. The Bald-headed Ibis is usually only found in the Kwa-Zulu Natal and Mpumalanga provinces of South Africa. Up close, the Sacred ibis looks quite prehistoric. The Ibis, and particularly the Sacred Ibis,  was venerated and often mummified by Ancient Egyptians as a symbol of their god, Thoth -the God of Knowledge, Hieroglyphs and Wisdom.

This bird is usually silent unlike its Hadeda cousin, which can be politely termed raucous. It feeds on fish, frogs, small mammals, reptiles, insects and smaller birds. It also uses its bill to probe the sand and mud for invertebrates such as earthworms. During this trip I saw more frogs caught than I have ever seen on any other trip on the Chobe river. The next two images show a Sacred Ibis which had caught a large frog and was having quite a time subduing it. Eventually the Sacred Ibis managed to kill the frog and swallow it whole, head first.

The next image shows the Scared Ibis’s crop bulging with the frog it has just swallowed.

Although the Sacred Ibis is an accomplished forager, it is not adverse to a bit of stealing. Interestingly, we saw the Sacred Ibis, Little Egret and Black Heron all working in concert along the river’s edge The Black Heron was the smallest, so had to take special care to hang on to the food it found.

The Great Egret is much larger than the Yellow-billed being almost a metre in height, a third larger than the Yellow-billed Egret. Apart from their larger size, they have a much deeper gape which extends to just behind the eye and their legs are all black. Their beaks can be green in the case of a juvenile, or yellow when non-breeding but is black when breeding.

The Openbill Stork is usually only found in the northern parts of Namibia, Botswana, South Africa and Mozambique and throughout Zimbabwe. We only saw the occasional Openbill this trip but at other times the sky has been filled with thousands of these Storks – a really impressive sight. We saw no Yellow-billed Storks. The Openbills are medium sized waders characterized by their large bills, with mandibles which do not meet except at the tip. The upper mandible is straight but the lower one has an downward  facing  curve in it. 

This stork feeds mainly on freshwater mussels and snails.

The Openbill detects the snail by sight and by touch, catching it between its mandibles. It then pushes its lower mandible’s tip into the shell, in order to remove the operculum and cut the strong muscle. Finally, it extracts the molluscs while holding the shell with the upper mandible tip against the ground.

You are likely to see Saddle-billed Storks along the river’s edge. They are usually hunting for fish, frogs and insects. This male Saddle-bill, distinguished by its black eye and yellow wattle under its chin, was disturbed by us  and decided to move to a quieter place without so many ‘big clicking eyes’. The female Saddle-bill has a yellow eye ring and no yellow wattle under her chin.

I hope you enjoyed wandering along the Chobe with waders, realising there is much more to this group of birds than is commonly understood.

 LESSONS FROM NATURE

I learnt from the sun
That light has to be spread,
The breeze taught me
How to be cool all the time.
The trees inspired me to be colossal in giving.
As I discovered serenity from water
And the vacuum made me understand
How to live with nothing around.
The earth taught me how to nurture
The very people who trampled it.
Fire made me realize the importance
Of being pure and yet involving.
I learnt from space the virtue of
Being BIG and yet unassuming .
For nature had all virtues a man needs to learn
In all its elements.

– Mahesh Jambunathan

Seek to understand nature, marvel at its interconnectedness and then let it be

Have fun

Mike

This is the fifth post from my recent trip with CNP to the Chobe river. This trip has become an annual pilgrimage.

“And this, our life exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks, sermons in stones and good in everything.

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”

 – William Shakespeare

No trip to the Chobe would be complete without a few images of the ubiquitous Fish-Eagle. The abundance of food dictates that the Chobe river area attracts many raptors. We also usually see a few African Harrier -Hawks, African Hawk-Eagles, Eagles, Goshawks and a number of Vulture species.  This trip we did not see any Goshawks, Hawk-Eagles or Vultures close up,  but we were fortunate enough to see a Western Banded Snake-Eagle on two occasions thanks to the eagle eyes of birders, Russell Warren and Stefan Swanepoel, on our boat.

The Fish-Eagle is a large, distinctive raptor. The female is bigger than the male and has a wingspan of about 2.4 m, almost 20% longer than the male. Her body is around 65cm in height.  The adult has very distinctive colouring with a white head, neck and chest and a chestnut-brown belly and leg feathers. It has large, powerful, wide black wings. This bird’s feathers have a distinctive lustre. Its face is yellow and featherless and it has a yellow cere and black beak.

The Fish-Eagle, as its name suggests, is predominantly a fish hunter. Although this species mainly feeds on fish, it is an opportunistic hunter which is known to take a wider variety of prey. Waterbirds make up 30% of its diet. It also steals food from a wide range of predators and is known to harass Pel’s Fishing-Owl, Storks and Herons for their food. Lou and Veronica Coetzer have some wonderful images of a Fish -Eagle snatching a White-faced Whistling Duck and another grabbing a Banded Mongoose. Fish Eagles are also known to prey on Lesser Flamingos where the supply is plentiful.

The Fish-Eagle hunts from a perch. Once prey is sighted, it launches from its perch, swoops low over the water, and at the critical moment pushes both feet forward to seize its target with its powerful talons. Its feet have rough soles which combined with their powerful talons enabling this Eagle to grasp slippery aquatic prey. Small fish are lifted up into a tree and eaten up on a branch but larger catches are dragged through the water to the shoreline. The Fish-Eagle uses its wings as paddles to propel itself through the water to the bank while holding onto its large prey with its talons.  It is estimated that only one in seven or eight fishing attempts are successful. The African Fish-Eagle rarely spends more than a quarter of an hour per day actively hunting but when it does the action is dramatic.

With its distinctive plumage and evocative cry, the African Fish-Eagle is probably the most recognised bird of prey in Africa. Perched majestically on a dead stump sticking out of the river or in a high branch of a tree overlooking the water, the contrast between the white head, neck, chest and tail, and the chestnut belly, and the black wings, is unmistakable.

Much less striking is the almost scruffy appearance of the immature African Fish-Eagle, with its generally dark-brown  with white mottled plumage. After the first year, the plumage begins to resemble that of the adult, but will take at least four to five years and numerous moults to reach full maturity. On occasion, from a distance, I have mistaken a juvenile Fish-Eagle for an Osprey, but the Osprey has a white chest and belly and a black eye stripe. Ospreys are not often seen along the Chobe river.

Adult African Fish-Eagles are normally seen in pairs, but on large productive lakes and rivers, nests and roosts can be only a few hundred metres apart, and many birds can be found together in one area, as can be seen in the Okavango. The clear, ringing call “weee-ah hyo-hyo-hyo”, is made with the head thrown back. This must be one of the most evocative sounds along African rivers and lake shorelines. The male has a higher pitched call than the female.

Calling and dueting, whilst perched or soaring, is an integral part of the breeding display. At times it is combined with dramatic aerial dives and falls, with pairs interlocking talons in mid-air. I have seen the calling while perched together and I have seen them calling with their heads flung back way up in the sky with massive cumulus clouds as their backdrop, but I have never seen their aerial displays.

“Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it and be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.”

 – Hermann Hesse

We regularly see African Harrier-Hawks patrolling the section of the river between the Kasane lodges upstream to the Chobe Game Lodge. Not only have these avian hunters got striking colouring but they have unique legs and are probably the birds most hated by the other birds along the river because they are adept nest raiders.

The African Harrier-Hawk, previously known as a Gymnogene, is a medium-sized raptor, roughly the size of a Fish-Eagle but more slender in build. Its upper parts, head and breast are pale grey. Its belly is finely barred with black and white feathers. It has broad pale grey wings, where its primaries are fringed with a broad black band, and it has black spots on the wing coverts. It has a broad white band across its black tail.

It also has a bare facial patch which is variable in colour, which is usually seen as bright yellow. When it calls near the nest, this patch becomes pink, and during display, face becomes various shades of orange to almost red. Its eyes are dark brown. It has a hooked short black beak. Its feet and legs are yellow, but uniquely they are double-jointed and its feet are small. This enables this avian hunter to be surprisingly dexterous.

An unusual trait of this species is its double-jointed knees, which enable it to reach into otherwise inaccessible holes and cracks for prey. The African Harrier-Hawk is omnivorous, eating the fruit as well as hunting small vertebrates. It has the ability to climb, using wings as well as feet. It is known to raid the nests of cavity-nesters such as Pygmy Geese, Oxpeckers, Barbets and Wood-Hoopoes for their fledglings.

You can see the Brown, Black-chested and Western Banded Snake-Eagles along the Chobe. I have seen a Black-chested Snake-Eagle but it was not close enough to photograph. I have been on the river  quite a few times with CNP but have never seen a Western Banded Snake-Eagle. Snake-Eagles have a distinctive shaped head and diet compared to Hawk-Eagles and Eagles. The only other southern Africa raptors who regularly eat snakes are Bateleurs and Secretary Birds.

““Here and there awareness is growing that man, far from being the overlord of all creation, is himself part of nature, subject to the same cosmic forces that control all other life. Man’s future welfare and probably even his survival depend upon his learning to live in harmony, rather than in combat, with these forces.”

 -Rachel Carson

The  Snake-Eagles have a distinctive wide head with large piercingly  eyes. The Brown and Black-chested Snake-Eagles have menacing large yellow eyes while the Southern and Western Banded Snake-Eagles have light-yellow to whitish irises.  Snake-Eagles are stocky and aggressive hunters. The Southern and Western Banded Snake-eagles are much more secretive than their Black Chested and Brown cousins, remaining relatively hidden in tree canopies of heavy woodland and forest areas .

The Western Banded Snake Eagle is a greyish brown, as is the Southern Banded Snake-Eagle but the latter has conspicuous brown and white barring on its belly and top of its legs. The Western Banded has a short black tail, with broad white centre band and a fine white terminal band. It’s beak is black with deep yellow cere.  It is found in northern Botswana and along the northern border of Zimbabwe. The Southern-Banded is found mainly in Mozambique.

Snake-Eagles are specialist snake hunters but also supplement their diet with small reptiles. Their tarsi are covered in thick scales which protect them from snake bites. They are not immune to the venom but they also have a thick covering of breast and leg feathers which helps protect them from snake bites. They all hunt from a perch but the Southern and Western Banded Snake-Eagles are also known to catch snakes in trees.

Snake-Eagles are thought to be nomadic, so do not breed in the same nest twice, though little is known about the Southern and Western Banded Snake Eagles breeding habits.

We did not see vultures close up and only saw one Marabou Stork late one evening as we were returning to the lodge. This is not the right time of the year for Yellow-billed and Black Kites and we did not see African Hawk Eagles or any of the Goshawks. I can only assume there was so much food around that they did not need to stay close to the river.

Next week I will post a series of images of another type of avian hunter found alongside the river, waders. I hope you enjoyed the trip down the Chobe river looking at a select group of the many raptors which can be seen along the river.

“Without wilderness, we will eventually lose the capacity to understand our country. Our drive, our ruggedness, our unquenchable optimism and zeal and elan go back to the challenges of the untrammeled wilderness.

If we lose wilderness, we lose forever the knowledge of what was and what it might, with understanding and loving husbandry, yet become.

These are islands in time, with nothing to date them on the calendar of mankind. In these areas it is as though a person were looking backward into the ages and forward into untold years. Here are bits of eternity, which have a preciousness beyond all accounting.”

 – Harvey Broome

Co-founder, The Wilderness Society

Seek to understand nature, marvel at its interconnectedness and then let it be

Have fun

Mike

This is the fourth post from our recent Chobe trip with Coetzer Nature Photography (CNP). The first post showed the Jacana’s, the second described some of the experiences we had with the  ‘river horses”. The third was a little calmer after the aggression shown (towards each other) by the hippos and showed the moods of the Chobe river at dawn and dusk.

This fourth post aims to show you a small selection of the beautifully coloured avian gems which you can see along the river. The river has a tremendous wealth of avian life. This post purposefully excludes raptors and waders which will be the focus of two further posts.

For man, as for flower and beast and bird, the supreme triumph is to be most vividly, most perfectly alive.

D. H Lawrence

One unexpected treasure was this sighting of a Brown-throated Weaver. It is uncommon and usually only found in the northern Botswana rivers, and in eastern Mozambique and Kwa-Zulu Natal. This is breeding season so the brown neck is vividly coloured. This is the only weaver I have seen along the Chobe even though most of the weavers are found in northern Botswana. Each weaver has a distinctive shaped nest. The Brown-throated tends to build its nest on reeds and papyrus leaves. The main chamber of the nest looks like that of a masked weaver but without the tunnel entrance. I have only seen individual Brown-headed Weavers but they are supposed to be sociable like so many of the weavers which build their nests in colonies.

You will find three species of Coucal along the Chobe river, the White-browed, Senegal and Coppery-tailed. We saw a White-browed but it was fleeting and we could not get a worthwhile image of it. The next image is of a Coppery-tailed Coucal in flight. They have broad wings which enables them to lift themselves out of the thick reeds with relative ease. The long tail helps them to balance in the grass and reeds. Coucals have reversal dimorphism where the females are bigger and more brightly coloured with bigger beaks than the males. They are also thought to be polyandrous, meaning the male looks after the chicks.

It is amazing to see how adept these Coucals are to skulking through the reeds forging for insects, small reptiles and even bird’s eggs and nestlings. Make no mistake these are serious predators.

It is difficult to tell the difference between the Senegal and Coppery-tailed at a glance by colour alone. The Coppery-tailed is materially bigger than the Senegal Coucal. This Coppery-tailed Coucal was taking a meal for its almost fully fledged juvenile.

Surprisingly, we did not see many Red Bishops in the reed beds along the river. I would have expected to see many more Bishops, red and yellow and yellow crowned.

Another gem which can also be seen  along the river is the Pygmy goose. These are the smallest of the geese found in southern Africa. On the CNP boats they have become nicknamed the ‘pocket rockets’ or ‘turbo geese’. The reason being that they take-off from the water like rockets and its takes some skill to capture a pin-sharp image of them in flight, getting the head and tail pin sharp is possible after numerous attempts, but getting the wing tips pin sharp – now that is a step up on the difficulty scale.

I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance that I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.

Henry David Thoreau

The male Pygmy Goose has spectacular colouring with a black crown, emerald green neck/nape, white face, yellow bill and ochre breast and side feathers. The female is dimorphic and has a distinctive black eye sash. This time of the year has been coined the ‘Jacana season’, it could just as well have been called the ‘Pygmy geese’ season. Pygmy Geese are true geese in that they nest in holes in trees rather than on the ground like ducks. Geese differ from ducks in that they have a developed hind toe and claws which allows them to perch on branches in trees.

This male’s body and head were pin sharp but even at 1/4000th of a second shutter speed the wing tips  were still not pin sharp.

On our last morning down at Pygmy goose bend, we were waiting for the ‘pocket rockets’ to return to their resting place on a fallen tree trunk. While waiting we heard a small band of ‘cackling widows’ which flew into the tree next to us. These Green Wood-Hoopoes, cackle away sounding quite similar to Arrow-marked Babblers. These Wood-Hoopoes use their long red beaks to find grubs and insects under the bark. The male tends to have a more curved beak but there is no sexual dimorphism. They are though co-operative breeders and tend to move around in family groups.

Chobe is known for its plethora of Bee-eaters. One Bee-eater of two which is not seasonal is the White-fronted, not White-throated as Russell correctly pointed out. The White-throated Bee-eater is found in west and central Africa. It is an exquisitely green, blue and orange coloured with a distinctive black and white striped  head. The Carmine and Blue-cheeked Bee-eaters migrate north during the colder months as the insect activity dies down along the river during winter. Most Bee-eaters move north to warmer climes to improve their insect hunting success.

I have a particular penchant for Carmine Bee-eaters as my life long ‘shamwari’ Mike Condy’s Dad John Condy took us youngsters out to Beatrice about 20 miles south of Salisbury (now Harare) in the Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) to see a colony of Carmine Bee-eaters nesting in a sand bank on the side of the Hunyani River. I  have never forgotten that day. The colours, noise and vibrancy of that colony of Carmines have stayed with me for the last fifty years. I still get a thrill when I see these exquisitely beautiful Bee-eaters.

A Carmine was following this Yellow-billed Egret because it had grasshopper in its beak and ever the opportunist was waiting for the Egret to drop it.

When the boat is moving on the water, the swallows fly around  it and even land on it at times. Flying birds are always a challenge and there is no better practice ( I didn’t say success) is to try and photograph these swallows flying passed the boat. Les Penfold and I tried to capture Wire-tailed Swallows as they flew around and passed the boat while we were moving. I never got a decent pin sharp image. I don’t know whether Les got one. One trick I did learn is that these little beauties like to rest of the reed leaves. 

When the wind is blowing towards the reeds and into our faces, this is the perfect position as the swallows have to fly into the wind and so slow down and then have to steady themselves before they land upwind on a reed. That moment just before landing is the when us amateurs have an opportunity to capture images of these quick little gems.

Blue-cheeked Bee-eaters are highly sociable and are often found flocking with White-fronted Bee-eaters. After the Carmines I think these are the next most exquisitely coloured Bee-eaters. I have only ever seen them on the Chobe River. Bee-eaters never seem to taste their food and can swallow invertebrates. They have two stomachs, the first provides chemical digestion and the second mechanical digestion. Once the digestive process is complete the Bee-eater has powerful contractions to regurgitate the remains of the exoskeleton of the insects it eats. Birds do have a rudimentary tongue and ability to taste to avoid noxious elements to prevent them being poisoned.

Blue-cheeked Bee-eaters have an extremely large range and are long-distance migrants; nesting colonially in sandy banks in the semi-deserts of northern Africa and subtropical Asia, whilst wintering in open woodland or grassland in sub-tropical Africa.

The larger the island of knowledge, the larger the shoreline of wonder.

Huston Smith

Little Bee-eaters are second species of Bee-eater to be a permanent resident along the Chobe. These exquisite midgets are found throughout Botswana, Zimbabwe and the northern part of SA and Mozambique. 

It was late afternoon down at Elephant Ally and this Water Thick-knee was foraging along the water’s edge for insects. These are mainly nocturnal birds so only become active late in the afternoon. Thick-knees are nocturnal as are Owls and Nightjars. You might be interested to know many ducks and geese, coursers and night herons are also active at night, both feeding and moving to feeding grounds. Being active at night negates the need for bright colours, in fact they need camouflage during the day.

The name Thick-knee is misleading as that so-called knee which is enlarged is in fact an ankle. Thick-knees also have no hind toe so cannot perch which is why you will find them standing on the side of the riverbank. Nocturnal birds tend to have loud and not melodious calls for territory and mating purposes.  Thick-knee’s have a haunting call heard most often at night.

“It is not required that we know all of the details about every stretch of the river. Were we to know, it would not be an adventure, and I wonder if there would be much point to the journey.”

Jeffrey T. Anderson

I have included this Allen’s Gallinule in this post rather than the waders because of their superb colouring. The Purple Gallinule is more common than the Allen’s Gallinule but we saw quite a few pairs of Allen’s Gallinules this last trip.

This solitary juvenile Allen’s Gallinule was tucking into what apparently must have been a feast.

This is an image and the first Cuckoo I have seen along there Chobe river. This looks like a African Cuckoo, mainly because of its yellow eye-ring and cere and does not have the  russet collar or orange eye ring and cere of the European Cuckoo.

A new thing I learnt from Russell Warren was that Cuckoos tend to go silent after breeding and before migrating. So when you do not hear the Red-chested and Didericks Cuckoos from March, it does not necessarily mean they have already migrated they may still be around.

We must begin thinking like a river if we are to leave a legacy of beauty and life for future generations.

Laura Gilpin.

At this time of the year you will see localised flocks of Broad-bordered Grass Yellow and Monarch butterflies along the Chobe river bank. They make a very attractive setting for animals and birds. This White-crowned Lapwing was intent on trying to eat as many of these Grass Yellows as it could.

This White-crowned Lapwing caught a Grass Yellow butterfly and was dunking it in the water presumably to swallow it more easily. This Lapwing let go of the Grass Yellow for a split second and it escaped.

The White Crowned Lapwing is found along the Chobe  together with the Red billed Francolin which is also found in this area and no where else. This Red-billed Francolin came down to drink in Elephant Ally but all the baboon activity and the odd bombastic young Elephant made this Francolin very weary.

The Broad-bordered Grass Yellows added an interesting and colourful addition to the scene around this Red-billed Francolin.

Yes, you are seeing double. These two juvenile African Jacanas were perfectly in sync. 

For birders, the Chobe river is a very rewarding destination. If you are a birder and photographer, you will keep returning – a paradise found.

”  I have not yet lost a feeling of wonder, and of delight,

that the delicate motion should reside in all the things around us,

revealing itself only to him who looks for it.”

Edmund Burke

Seek to understand nature, marvel at its interconnectedness and then let it be

Have fun

Mike

After the post about Hippo aggression I thought you might like to see the calmer side of the Chobe river. I have included images from our dawn and and dusk outings. We are usually back at the lodge between 10h00 and 15h00 getting some sustenance, relaxing and editing.

Each morning we would get together around 06h15 for a cup of coffee and a rusk. Of course, all the photographers had their kit loaded on the boat just after 06h00 and were chatting by the time coffee arrived.

Dawn is a time when nothing breathes, the hour of silence.

Everything is transfixed, only the light moves.

Leonora Carrington

We usually pushed off from the jetty at 6h30. The sun was still behind the ridge at the entrance to the park on the east side of the river as we travelled south. The next image shows the peace and tranquility of the river caressed by the early morning’s soft pastel colours. This image was taken just passed the army camp travelling up stream.

One of the advantages of being on the Chobe river at this time of the year is that there was a lot of cloud build up. The next two images were taken down near the first bend where the pump draws water. The shafts of light shining luminescent through clouds were magical. Thanks to Louis Swart for lending me his 14-24mm lens to get the shot.

“I see my light coming shining from the east into the west”

Early in the morning as we entered the Chobe National Park, there were times when the river was sublimely serene. The water could be so still that its surface was mirror-like reflecting the warm pastel colours of the early morning sky. It is times like this when I am in heaven on earth.

‘Silence is a source of great strength’

Lao Tzu

Passing through the first bend, where there are remains of a dilapidated camp under the trees, we often see at least one pair of Pygmy Geese as we travel west passed the island to the open part of the river.

Pygmy geese, or ‘pocket rockets’ as we call them take off without warning and fly very fast challenging photographers’ tracking skills, certainly on the first few days, until you get your eye in. Having said they give no warning, normally the female in the pair takes off first so you need to focus on the male.

It is unusual to see an Elephant drinking first thing in the morning. They usually come down to drink later in the day.

Just before we get to the Chobe Game Lodge there is a open area which gets flooded in the high water season. Often we see Buffalo, Puku and Lechwe in this area.

Travelling further upstream passed the Chobe Game Lodge we get to Elephant Ally on the left hand side.

Beyond Elephant Ally travelling west we have Puku Flats in front of us. We returned to where we saw the dead hippo calf to see if there had been any developments.

The water inlets along the edge of Puku Flats are covered in water lilies and depending on the wind and the direction of the light you can get some gorgeous images. In the next image, the light was in the right direction but the wind was also behind us.

Unknown

The next image was taken in the same inlet along Puku Flats that afternoon looking south-east. Again the wind was blowing from behind us lifting the water lily leaves.

The water around this next water lily looks like a mirror. That is how still parts of the river can be at times.

” The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep.”

 – Rumi

This time of the year delivers major cumulus cloud buildup with some enormous upthrusts creating plumes of sun drenched clouds pushing up miles into the sky.

Home time for a small flock of White-faced Whistling Ducks. When I look at this image, I can hear them whistling while flying in formation.

The sun peering through the clouds adds drama with a sense of divine light beaming down onto the river.

The park closes at 18h30, so this boat is on its way back to the lodges, which are about three kilometres further downstream.

Some evenings there are no vibrant reds and oranges but rather saturated light pinks, peaches and blues.

Other evenings are bathed in blues and oranges with the setting sun shining a golden path over the water.

This next image was taken on the way back to the lodge around 18h30 travelling passed the Namibian camp on stilts.

The clouds really do help provide drama to the colourful sunsets on the Chobe.

The next four images are of the iconic three Jackalberry trees at the tip of one of the large islands where the western limb of the river meets the main channel as it flows passed the lodges. A pair of Fish Eagles have their nest in the third Jackalberry. Lillac-breasted Rollers have their nest and seem to habitat the first Jackalberry. These trees don’t seem to mind having their feet permanently in the water.

The colours and moods are different each evening. Sometimes there is no sunset due to thick cloud cover. Other evenings the sky is on fire with colour.

I hope I have given you a sense of the different moods of the river which vary each day and are quite different in the morning and the afternoon.

Looking back at the Jackalberry trees at 18h30, we are putting the covers on our lenses, the chatter is animated and I can already taste that first beer after a hot afternoon – gulp!!.

” Life is like a camera.

just focus on what’s important,

capture the good times, develop from the negatives.

If things don’t work out, just take another shot”

Seek to understand nature, marvel at its interconnectedness and then let it be

Have fun

Mike

This is the first of four posts from my recent trip to photograph wildlife on the Chobe river with CNP. At this time of the year the water level in the Chobe river is rising fed by the rains in Zambia and Angola. The river level keeps rising until around May, late autumn in southern Africa, before subsiding to its low point around September each year. This time of the year has been called Jacana season by CNP. The reason being that most of the Jacana eggs are laid and hatch at this time. That said, every time we go out onto the water we see something different – the kaleidoscope of colour, movement and diversity is constantly changing.

“The human race is challenged more than ever before to demonstrate our mastery, not over nature but of ourselves.”

 – Rachel Carson

Chobe River

The source of the Chobe River is in Angola and this youthful part of the river is called Kwando, its Hambukushu name. It becomes the Linyanti when it reaches Botswana and is renamed again as it flows passed the Ngoma border post to become the Chobe . This river forms part of the northern border of Botswana meeting the Zambesi at the tip of the Caprivi Strip at Impalila Island, some 10 kilometres upstream of the ‘smoke that thunders’, the mighty Victoria Falls.

The wildlife rhythms along the Chobe River are governed by the changing seasons and rising and falling water levels of the river.

Coetzer Nature Photography (CNP)

We spent five days photographing wildlife from CNP’s specialised photographic boats, of which there are two on the Chobe river. These boats are long enough to comfortably seat eight photographers each with their own customised photographic unit comprising swivel seat and camera support . The seats swivel 360 degrees and the camera supports have Wimberly  heads and can be adjusted up and down. Usually large camera lens combinations are mounted on the camera supports, typically between 400mm and 800mm focal length lenses. There is no roof on the boat because there are many opportunities to photograph birds flying passed and overhead. The view is unobstructed. The next two images were taken of the other CNP boat carrying the experts from the Bloemfontein Camera Club, a great bunch of photographers.

These specialised boats are wide and with a small draft are enable access to shallow water areas. The boat drivers are skilled operators and guides. Neal Cooper was the CNP guide on our boat, an excellent wildlife photographer, knowledgeable birder and friend.

The boats are great fun and give us a very stable shooting platform. Normally, we went out for about four hours in the early morning and three hours in the late afternoon which gives us the best light of the day.

Jacana season

Two types of Jacana are found along the Chobe River. The first is the ubiquitous African Jacana with its resplendent chestnut coloured body and wing plumage with white neck and checks, black eye-strip, crown and nape of the neck. They also have a golden collar. The underparts in the adults is chestnut but white in juveniles with a chestnut belly patch. The blue bill extends up as a coot-like head shield, and the legs and long toes are grey-green. The second type of Jacana which is seldom seen is the Lesser Jacana.

The exact purpose of the frontal shield is not well understood, but it is believed to play a role in attracting a mate and may provide some protection to feeding birds, similar to rictal bristles. Frontal shields are relatively rare among birds, but many species of coots and gallinules also have prominent frontal shields.

The Jacana adults fly between pontoons of floating lily pads to feed and protect their territory. They can be very noisy when threatened or alarmed.

“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

It is always great fun trying to capture sharp images of flying birds on the river. The Fish Eagles are the easiest because they fly relatively slowly. The Jacanas are more difficult because they have wide wings which allow them to rocket up off the lily pads without warning. The Pygmy Geese are even faster and have been nicknamed ‘pocket rockets’ or ‘turbo geese’ by the photographers because they are difficult to photograph well. Once you have mastered the Pygmy Geese,  the next step is to try and photograph flying bee-eaters and swallows – not easy!!

As a photographer, it is always a thrill to get images of flying Jacanas despite being the easier of the the reed oriented birds to photograph. Crakes and Gallinules are more difficult to photograph as they tend to stay close to the transition zone between the reeds and lily pads. The reeds provide the ideal cover when threats present themselves. The female Jacana is larger and more brightly coloured than the male, much like the Painted Snipe, exhibiting a reversal of sexual dimorphism, characteristic rarely seen in birds.

 The African Jacana feeds on aquatic insects and larvae, worms, snails and insects, and may even forage on seeds.

The African Jacana is polyandrous, meaning that the male incubates the eggs soon after the female lays them and looks after the chicks once they hatch.  The female has multiple partners, a strategy which ensures that at least some of the chicks survive in what is a precarious environment to raise chicks. This reversal of sex roles is very unusual in the bird world.

“Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.”
― Socrates

It is easy to see why Jacana chicks need to be precocial, meaning the chicks are well developed and their eyes are open when they hatch. They are covered in a down but are able to walk and feed themselves shortly after hatching. The next image shows the flimsy nest on a light bed of gathered fallen reeds.  The nest and eggs are completely exposed. The eggs are pyriform or pear shaped where the one end of the egg is much narrower and more pointed than the other. This shape ensures that when the egg is moved it always rolls back into the centre of the nest, a necessary feature in such a makeshift nest.

The next three images are of African Jacana chicks, which are probably around a week old. They are already adept lily trotters. Their feet look way too big for them, physiology they will have to accommodate all of their lives.

The chicks come onto the water lily pads to feed when the coast is clear and run back into the reeds when they are alarmed. If they cannot get to the reeds in time, the chicks will also dive underwater with their beaks pointed up above the water surface acting as a snorkel.

The chicks are quite capable of swimming short distances, lying flat or hiding under a lily pad if there is an aerial threat.

When the wind blows too hard or the chicks feel threatened they run for cover or for comfort under Dad’s wings.

The male will also pick the chicks up once they  are under his wings and run for cover across the lily pads  to get the chicks out of harms way.

We were very fortunate to see a Lesser Jacana in the reed beds. This was thanks to the eagle eyes of Russell and Louis on our boat. These guys have amazing vision. We only saw one Lesser Jacana, the same one on two separate occasions. The Lesser Jacana is considerably smaller than the African Jacana, and at a quick glance could be mistaken for a juvenile African Jacana. The Lesser Jacana is much less brightly coloured than the African Jacana and is monogamous. It also rarely makes a sound unlike its noisy cousin.

The chicks of the Lesser Jacana are also known to dive underwater having only their beaks protruding out of the water as a snorkel for them to breath until the threat is gone. This species breeds in territorial solitary pairs. Outside the breeding season the Lesser  Jacana is usually seen singly. We only saw one individual in the same location on separate evenings. Despite looking carefully for the Lesser Jacana in the area of the previous sightings, we could not see it during the morning and early afternoon. The only sightings we got were around 18h00 when the light was low.

I hope you found this post on Jacanas interesting. I will do the next post on hippos. We had some unusual sightings and interactions which I will share with you. The more we delve into the natural world the more we see that it is complex, interconnected and more deliberate than we could ever have imagined.

“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.”
― Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

Seek to understand nature, marvel at its interconnectedness and then let it be.

Have fun

Mike

This is my third consecutive post from my trip with Lou Coetzer and Neal Cooper  and the CNP team in early May. There are two common denominators in this post, the first is the Chobe river and the second is that every image was taken from CNP’s fantastic photographic boat.  As you will see, virtually all of the shots are at or close to the water. Mammals or birds are either drinking, playing or bathing in the water and some hunting in the water.

The next shot is of my favourite antelope, the Sable. This is a lone young female. You can tell by the degree of curvature of the horns. She was very wary of what was around the water and what was in the water. These are rare, beautiful, and elegant antelope. A Sable is as agile and accurate with its set of horns as any first class cricketer.

It always intrigues me how many antelope, this Sable included, manage to keep their coats in such glossy condition. The Sable has a relatively small angular face with big brown eyes. From front on, you can see the positioning of their eyes gives them good stereoscopic and lateral vision.

The next shot is of one of two old “dagga boys”, old Buffalo bulls, who were wandering along the river’s edge and stopping every now and then to drink, unperturbed by photographic boats floating by.

One of the big advantages of photographing from the boat is that the animals are less afraid of you. That does not mean you have to be any less careful and respectful. The next image is of a couple of old Elephant bulls were walking along the edge of one of the islands in the middle of the river. I was using a 24mm lens to get the bulls in the frame, they were very close. The bull in the front could easily have touched me with his trunk with just one stride closer. The older bulls seem to be more confident and less concerned about us.

Deep shadow in the background helped profile this pair of Pied Kingfishers. The colouring and the dark background lent itself to a black and white adjustment.

There were a handful of Openbill Storks wandering in the shallows of the shoreline looking for snails and similar edibles. There were not many Openbills around in May but in the summer months you can see flocks of thousands flying overhead.

The Water Lilies are so colourful, I can’t help myself. On occasions the water surface was so smooth that it made a perfect background for these gorgeous flowers. The flowers attract insects, which in turn attract all kinds of birds from Lily-trotters to Weavers and Swallows.

We don’t see Red-billed Francolin in South Africa, so it is always interesting to see new species along the river.

Elephant Valley is a congregating point along the Chobe River upstream of the Chobe Game Lodge. This is a wonderful spot to see and photograph Elephant, Kudu, Impala, Baboons, a variety of birds and of course the always humorous warthog. The next shot is of a youngster who looked especially cute with his well groomed overgrown whiskers as he trotted brisky down to the water’s edge with his tail straight up in the air.

There are so many opportunities to take shots of scenes with different subjects and differing lighting. The next shot was taken late in the afternoon on the way back from Puku Flats where the light caught these few branches overhanging the river, against a darkish background.

This adult African Harrier Hawk strolled down to the water’s edge for a drink. These  birds have striking colouring but unusually their eyes are black. I have only ever seen them hunting alone, never in pairs.

All the Elephant dung along the river bank attracts dung beetles which in turn attract birds like this Sacred Ibis. Small crocodiles are also attracted by the dung beetles.

This young crocodile turned back into the water after missing a dung beetle it was targeting on the bank.

The Puku Flats upstream from Kasane attracts all sorts of game. Late one afternoon, a breeding herd of Elephant came walking through the flooded grass plain creating an evocative scene.

Early one morning, a reasonable size herd of Impala came down to drink. It was a very peaceful scene.

That mischievous face! This young Baboon was munching on a water lily stem and obviously enjoying it.

Baboons are very wary of crocodiles and are easily spooked when drinking at the water’s edge.

We had an unusual sighting of a Shikra (similar to a Little Goshawk) but with brilliant red eyes. This little chap was bathing.  Before flying down to bath, he too spent a long time watching the water looking for signs of crocodiles.

There are big ones and there are small ones too. This shot is of a female Stonechat – beautiful little seed-eater on a simple perch with a clean background.

A full blooming Water Lilly – beautiful. In this state, many insects are attracted to the open flowers.

A Green-backed Heron posing in front of a deep shadow backdrop. These small Herons don’t usually hang around for you to take the shot, so a little luck is needed.

Around half an hour after the sun sets the colours in the evening sky become very saturated. I love the shift in light and colour from the horizon into the evening sky.

This was the view from my hotel room each evening on returning from our afternoon shooting session. A quick shower and off to have drinks and dinner with everyone to share stories from the day. After dinner some hardened souls went to edit their day’s images but for most of us, all the fresh air and sun and the satisfaction of having nailed some decent images during the day was a perfect reason to put your head on the pillow. Sleep comes quickly usually with the sound of hippo talking to each other in the river.

For those of you who prefer a more leisurely game viewing experience there are always the houseboats, but if you are a keen photographer this is not the best option – CNP’s photographic boat is!!!.

I hope you have got a sense of why I keep returning to the Chobe River with my cameras.  Lou Coetzer and his team make these trips comfortable, productive and memorable.

The river level will probably continue to drop from May onwards. Once it starts warming up in August-September then everything changes again. The game is different and the variety of birds expands as the migrants return.

The wonderful aspect of this river is that everything is so dynamic, you will never see the same thing in the same place, the next time you go out on the boat. I will keep going back!

The river of life is always flowing  – go with the current!

Have fun

Mike

This is the second of three weekly posts from my trip with CNP to the Chobe River in early May. This week’s theme is flying birds. The Chobe River is the backdrop. If you find birds fascinating, as I do, then the Chobe river will provide you with a wonderful playground. The variety of birds found along the Chobe River is astounding. The one key difference between mammals and birds, from a photographic point of view, is that birds are always doing something. Their interactions and even basic movement can be challenging to photograph. One of the most fun challenges on the boat is to get decent shots of flying birds, preferably as full in the frame as possible. This is not always that easy with the long lenses because it is quite a skill to just pick up the moving bird in the lens given its narrow field of vision.

With flying birds and changing direction, quality and intensity of the light there is a constant balancing act adjusting ISO, shutter speed and F-stop trying to get the whole bird pin sharp, wing tips included. Birds like Storks and Egrets generally fly in a straight line, which makes getting the shot easier. Other birds, such as Gulls, Harriers, Yellow-billed Kites, Swallows and Swifts, Drongos and Bee-eaters, fly in a very erratic fashion which ups the difficulty many fold.

This next shot is of a Little Egret flying almost directly toward me. Importantly, the background was far behind the bird so was easy to blur and emphasise the flying Egret.

The next shot is of a Yellow-billed Egret banking in front of me giving a great photographic opportunity. Again the background was far enough behind enabling the blurring to highlight the bird in flight.

Egrets can be impressive photographic subjects when they are coming in to land. This Yellow-billed Egret is about to land on a sandbank. Under the wings, the airflow appears to be linear  with all the feathers smooth. When landing the wing angle changes allowing air to bled off the top of the wing causing some feathers to lift as the air speed slows. The Alula is clearly visible on the wing elbow. This group of feathers is thought to provide extra wing area at low speeds.

The variety of bird life along the Chobe river is vast. A Fish Eagle’s wings are wide allowing it to fly at lower speeds. The next shot shows the power of this bird. There are plenty of fish in the river but they are not always that easy to catch. Fish Eagles are known to also prey on Herons and Ducks and will take a Mongoose or baby Crocodile if they can catch one – they are great opportunists.

The next shot was taken when the wind was blowing strongly. This female Fish Eagle stopped to rest with some nesting material in one talon. She had to balance on one foot and lifted a wing just to keep her balance. After a short rest she flew up to her nest which was close by in one of the three Jackalberry trees alongside the River. Often when it is nest-building season, around this time of the year, Fish Eagles can be seen flying and trailing large strands of grass and reeds for lining on route to their nests.

Every trip to the Chobe River and almost every day, we see a Marsh Harrier scouring the reeds beds for something to eat. They can be tricky to photograph as their flight path can be very erratic. They are not fussy feeders going for small reptiles, birds and even eggs.

It is amazing how quickly these Marsh Harriers fly  and are able to cover vast distances in a morning. Invariably the photographic opportunity is a fly by.

There are many Egyptian Geese on the Chobe River. They make great subjects for photographers to practice their flying bird photography, as they tend to fly is a straight line.

It is always a thrill to see Bee-eaters. They are all incredibly colourful and superb fliers. In May, the last of the Carmine Bee-eaters are still around. Most have already migrated north to warmer climes. Small groups of remaining Carmines were feeding on insects disturbed by Herons and Egrets as they fly in and out of the reeds.

Every time an Egret flew into the reed bed in front of us, a group of Carmine Bee-eaters would dart over to that spot to catch the insects which were disturbed. Trying to get a decent pin sharp shot of flying Carmines catching insects is really challenging – much practice is needed as is an understanding of the Carmine’s interactions.

One of the most impressive raptors, in my opinion, in the African Hawk Eagle. This is one aggressive hunter. It is a big bird but is capable of tight flying through the trees almost like a Goshawk and can also soar in thermals like an Eagle.

The Black-winged Stilt is the long-legged model of the shoreline birds. It has a petite build and very long, pinkish red legs which are ultra thin.

At this time of the year, there are massive flocks of Collared Pratincoles along the Chobe River. These are beautiful birds and elegant flyers. In the mornings, they appear to fly in what looks like swarms swinging this way and that. As an observer they seem to be flying for the pure joy of it.

Another ubiquitous bird along the Chobe River shoreline is the Cape Turtle Dove. They fly down to drink to from the river’s edge from adjacent trees. They put their whole beak into the water to drink.  Smaller crocodiles try to catch these very quick birds, and are often lucky. This is a great way to practice your flying bird skills. Don’t be fooled, once these birds have slated their thirst, they take off like rockets, similar to Sandgrouse .

We don’t often see African Harrier Hawks along the Chobe River. This trip we were lucky enough to see them on most days. These must be the most hated birds along the river as they feed on other birds chicks. They have long double-jointed legs that reach into normally inaccessible places. These birds are beautifully coloured  with a yellow face surrounding black eyes. Their wide wings allow them to fly slowly along the river bank looking for edibles.

I hope you get a sense of how interesting flying birds are for photographers. The shape of the bird’s wing and its size gives many clues as to how it flies and consequently how it feeds. This in turn will give the photographer some insight as to how best to get that flying shot. Getting good flying bird shots comes with practice and techniques you pick up from other sharing photographers.

Next week, I will share a variety of bird and mammal shots taken along the Chobe River, some of which are of my favourite antelope, the Sable.

Try to get into the bush!

“In all things nature there is something of the marvellous” – Aristotle

Have fun

Mike