We woke this morning to rolling thunder in the distance. H had decided to go for a run before we went out so she was up and running by 6am and we headed out when she got back. The lightening and thunder stayed in the distance and while it remained overcast the whole day, it has yet to actually rain.
We did the drive north and to the bird hide (Matambeni) which overlooks a portion of the Letaba river. At the hide we saw a pretty rare bird (I have only seen them once before in 2010 in Botswana) called a Collared Pratincole. They were very kindly pointed out to us by a family of birders. The son (adult son) politely asked if we were birders and when we said yes he pointed them out to us. The father (older than us in case you’re wondering), very proudly told us their bird list for the trip was now on 156 to which I replied with our total of 209 (at that point). You could see the look of amazement on his face (and a degree of disappointment). He did immediately qualify it and said they have only stayed at Letaba Camp whereas we obviously have been in the south as well. We have found that after about 3 days in the same terrain you start seeing the same birds and it definitely helps to change terrain and camps.
After they left, I saw another lifer (taking me to 555) – Willow Warbler. We only added 3 birds to the trip list today (we saw another unique one at the camp later) so our trip list is now at 211 and I have had 6 lifers. All 3 of these were lifers for H so she is well past 90 lifers for the trip.
The game viewing was restricted to impala, waterbuck, elephant, warthog, buffalo, zebra and wildebeest with again no predators sighted. This afternoon’s drive was even less successful with hardly any bird life and once again we saw more animals than we did birds on the drive. The bushveld was very quiet. I had read earlier on the trip that the animals are skittish when it is windy and stormy. They apparently make less sound and are generally nervous in those conditions. It explains why hardly any birds were calling today.
Our food supplies have run down and so we had dinner in the restaurant tonight. Tomorrow is our last day (half day strictly speaking) in the park. We have a reasonable amount of driving to do in the park still so there is hope of adding more game and birds to the list tomorrow am again.
Until tomorrow when should be back home … (One thing I won’t be sorry about is better connectivity – the cellphone signal has driven me crazy here at Letaba)
P & H