Today was somewhat disappointing in terms of game and we only added another 6 birds to the trip list taking us to 128. I was targeting 150 for the trip so unless we do spectacularly tomorrow on the way out, it seems we will be short of that target. Most of the migrants don’t seem to have returned yet – in fact the only migrant we have seen was the European Bee-Eater.

We did our usual morning game drive – leaving at 5:30am; heading north along the river and then following the river to the Engelhart Dam for our morning coffee. We stopped at the bird hide on the way back to camp and picked up a few more trippers (3 of the 6 actually). B and S both passed over 200 lifers on the trip so this visit has boosted their birding quite a lot.

It was much cooler today and much more pleasant both in the camp and on the game drives. It only got to 31 C today but it really didn’t ever feel that hot as their was a wind blowing most of the day that made it feel much cooler. We did an evening drive to the north and then west and back to camp (again along the river much of the way). While there was the usual game in the river bed – elephant, waterbuck, impala, vervet monkeys etc – we never saw any predators. We did another Verreaux’s (Giant) Eagle Owl (our 3rd of the trip which is quite remarkable given we often come and never seen any).

We had a braai for our last meal here. It was a good call to braai tonight and not last night as the weather was much cooler and very pleasant sitting outside actually.

We are disappointed not to have seen either leopard or cheetah in the 7 days we have been here so far. We have big anticipation for tomorrow. We are taking the longer route out of the park to ensure we give ourselves maximum opportunity to see what we haven’t seen and to add to the bird list for the trip.

Until tomorrow when we should be home when I type this …

P, S, H & B (he deserves his last spot today given all the chirping he did today)