In case you're wondering, NO - I did not spend my downtime after brunch in the camp's hide - I was too busy downloading and backing up the morning's mammoth effort.
It was George's last afternoon so we gave him free choice of what we did and as the 6 cheetahs had already left the area he was happy enough just to see what was about. Having said we've not seen much zebra, they were of course the first thing we came across shortly out of camp, but only a few. It was a fairly quiet afternoon and nothing very exciting to report, which is probably just as well as I don't seem to have been very creative with my shots this afternoon. So really just a record of what we saw.
I'm hoping this is just the camera angle and the zebra's nose isn't really trailing on the ground.
This could be Knole Park in the Autumn if it wasn't for the bare soil.
We were driving along another dried up river bed and straight in front of us was this wall of rock which reminded me of Mount Rushmore except that I could see The Royal Family.
The Queen, Prince Philip, Prince Charles and Princess Anne - hopefully it's not just me being bonkers and you can see them too?
Fork Tailed Drongo (this is the species that was sitting on the Brown Snake Eagle's head the other day).
Duiker f.
A pair of Saddle-Billed Storks
One interesting thing we learned whilst driving along the dried up river beds was that crocodiles were hibernating in the soil and river banks. Apparently they can stay there for months on end waiting for the rains.
We lost the sun quite quickly as we were down between the banks and I thought the silhouettes of Helmeted Guinea Fowl might make a fun picture.
I was pleased to spot this Brown Hooded Kingfisher, but as always the background is pretty untidy.
We then found this lovely female leopard who was out on the prowl. It got progressively darker as we followed her so some of the images are a bit ropey but I'll see what I can do with my denoise software.
Time for a quick rest and oblivious to the truck, as always.
An awful photo but I've included it so you can see her target - Impala.
Needless to say she didn't manage to get either of these so we decided to leave her to contemplate her next move - the light had really gone and I for one don't like photos taken with the artificial spotlight.
What a magnificent creature!
I might complain about the spotlight but I must say if Ibrahim hadn't been shining it from side to side on the drive home, Daniel wouldn't have spotted this Flap-Neck Chameleon.
Quite how he managed to see something sitting in a bush, which is only about 10" long and designed to resemble a leaf, whilst driving at about 25 mph along a bumpy, narrow and twisting track in the dark I just don't know - but he did!
I've just realised I haven't talked much about the evenings. We're usually back in camp around 1915 and someone will be waiting to greet us, usually Booboo, who will tell us how long we have before dinner is ready - this can range from 15 mins to minus 10 mins on one famous occasion when she wanted us ready before we'd actually got back! Tonight we had a few minutes spare so met in the bar beforehand and ordered our usual bottle of wine. George had told us previously that he was allergic to alcohol but as it was his last night we thought it only polite to offer him a glass - to our astonishment he accepted with thanks and then had to take a lot of ribbing as to how his "allergy" would cope.
Dinner is served in the boma or fire pit area (internet image as I didn't take any!) and as with other meals the occupants of different trucks are on separate tables. At least one guide will host the evening, which was poor Daniel for the first 3 days until more guests arrived (4 Americans; one who'd visited 20 years ago and all very pleasant to exchange comments/sightings with) and he had a well deserved rest.
