As well as the ribbing for drinking wine, we all teased George mercilessly at pre drive coffee this morning as having declared on arrival that he was diabetic and indeed had sugar free versions of food prepared for him, he was happily stuffing his pockets with full sugar muffins - so I think his "allergies" are more that he likes to restrain himself.
We were barely out of camp when we bumped into this unusually attractive hyena.
Unfortunately the truck failed to restart and so Daniel and Iphraim had to get down and fiddle around with the starter.
Rather them than me with the hyena just a few meters away. Despite their reputation as scavengers, hyenas are in fact also very efficient hunters/killers and take the dubious honour of being the only animal to eat their prey whilst it's still alive (cats suffocate them first). Poor Iphraim doesn't enjoy the cold morning air.
And Daniel isn't wearing a face mask for Covid reasons but purely to keep the dust out of his lungs (when he wears it properly). George, in front with the cap, had taken 1,000 photos already this morning - he's way worse than me.
Our way in and out of camp is always the same and Ian has come to recognise many turnings, bushes, dead trees and other landmarks and always knows roughly how far away we are in time. The chameleon we'd seen last night was on the regular route so we stopped at the appropriate bush (God knows how Daniel and Iphraim knew which one) but sadly there was no sign of it.
Having listened to us enthuse about the elephant hide, George had booked in for his last morning (I do hope he won't be disappointed) so we dropped him off around 0730 and said our goodbyes. George gave us his contact details and said he's usually in London at least once a year so maybe we can meet up with him - he really was a nice man. As we were nearing the hide I noticed a truck parked on the top of the escarpment overlooking the waterhole and the penny dropped; Garibou hadn't had 6th sense as to when elephants were arriving, rather the truck on the top of the hill was monitoring the animals and updating him by radio!
Meve's Starling
Yellow-Billed Hornbill (Flying Banana) - not totally sharp though!
Blue Waxbill m. and f. and although they were in the same frame I've had to encourage them to sit nearer each other otherwise they'd just be little dots.
We then drove along another dried up river bed (no doubt one of the ones we'd been along before) where White-Fronted Bee Eaters are nesting in the banks and 100s of them were out in the trees sunning themselves. Nowhere near as many as we saw in Zambia (Carmine Bee Eaters) but nonetheless still like jewels hanging in a tree.
This makes me giggle, in the left image the two are clearly mating and then, in the next frame, just sitting there quietly as if butter wouldn't melt and in both the other two look on - voyeurs!
Driving further along the river bed we could see in the distance an elephant lying against the bank.
At first I thought he must be dead but Daniel explained us this was common behaviour, particularly by lone males, as it was easier to get upright quickly from this position.
Further along this bridge is obviously constructed so that it doesn't get swept away in the heavy rains.
Daniel then took us to look for the leopard cub (whose brother had been killed) we found her quite easily but she was obviously under strict instructions from Mum not to move far from her den and so the pictures are pretty rubbish.
Daniel got me to clamber into the front of the truck for a better view but I still couldn't shoot clear of the foliage. We watched her for ages just playing around, eating sticks and falling out of trees.
I was a little worried that we might be stressing her but she showed no signs of being bothered; she clearly knew we were there but didn't perceive us as a threat. Daniel said it was good for her to get habituated to trucks but even so we didn't stay too long. So just one half decent photo, but this was one of the rare instances when I really was happy just to witness the animal's behaviour and not be too concerned about the photography side.
An unusually 'blond' family of piggies.
We've seen very few LBR this trip, maybe it's too cold (in joke!).
Iphraim and Daniel whose company we've thoroughly enjoyed and think they've enjoyed us too. Iphraim was telling me that some guests who don't even say "good morning" let alone chat throughout the day.
We were back for brunch quite early so during the break I spent some time in our little hide overlooking the waterhole. Just Impala (another in joke) and Wildebeest, but what handsome animals.
Then something spooked the Wildebeest and they scattered too.
I waited around for a while to see what might have disturbed them but in the end gave up and went for a shower (I've given up showering in the early morning - too cold) and then have a bit of a rest.