Written by Tony Medici
[Additional comments by Thom are in italics and brackets, like this]
The schedule of activities runs a bit differently at lodges than it does in the mobile camps. At Xugano—pronounced Tsu-gawn-o with a click at the start—we wake up a bit later since we can’t travel between buildings unguided when it is dark out. A quick breakfast is followed by the chosen morning activity. Once that activity is completed and you’ve returned to the lodge, we have brunch followed by free time during the heat of the day. We gather again for tea time and then go out for another chosen afternoon activity until sunset. You’ll then be given a choice between returning to your room before dinner or waiting for dinner in the common area. If you do return to your room to freshen up, you schedule with a guide to come get you for dinner since the lodges don't want you to travel outside the common area by yourself after dark.
This morning I decided I would skip the morning activity in favor of working on some images and working on possible topics for the blog. I understand I missed a guided walk and a slow boat ride safari and that both were great. I’m ok with missing them since I needed a break and I needed to work on ideas for the blog. Everyone needs some downtime during the trip and Thom and the guides will remind you of that during the trip. On any day that isn’t a travel day, you can chose to skip an activity by staying in camp.
[I, however, did go on the morning walk and boat ride. Here's some of what Tony missed (all taken with my APS-C camera):
We took two boats out deep into the reeds to a remote island, where we walked a little over two miles according my Apple watch. I love these walks because it's a very different experience from driving around looking at things; you feel like you're part of Africa on these walks. Moreover, you can see and photograph just about anything in the environment, and take your time in doing so:
(The previous time we were in this exact place, there was a big male lion sitting under that tree in the background ;~).
After our walk, we decided to attempt to get to the second rookery in the area, which you can't always do because the water levels sometimes preclude getting even our shallow hulled boats through. We slowly worked our way there, though, and ended up with more bird mating activity. I'll keep this G rated, but we saw pairs of several species of birds doing their rituals and nest building.
One thing about being in the narrow channels of the delta is that this also increases the likelihood of finding the elephants in the water, too:
The afternoon activity was another boat ride that about half of us decided to go out on (Thom took the afternoon off; we often do this one day of trading off time on our longer trips). As with the morning ride, the ride gave us lots of opportunities for photography, and we spent most of that time looking for and finding the birds that inhabit the reeded delta.
On the boat I used a Nikon 400mm F4.5 and a 2x converter on a Z8. I also had a Nikon 100-400mm on a Z9 as a backup.
A Pied Kingfisher in flight.
A Malokite Kingfisher in the reeds fishing.
A Nile Monitor Lizard in the reeds sunning.
A Squacco Heron scared off by the boat approach.
A Malokite Kingfisher in the reeds.
A flock of White-faced Whistling Ducks.
A juvenile Red Lechwe.
A Green-backed (Striated) Heron by the water’s edge.
A White-fronted Bee-Eater on a reed.
A White-fronted Bee-Eater right after take off. This was taken using pre-capture mode at 60 fps.
A Goliath Heron in late afternoon light.
A Malokite Kingfisher right after take off.
We probably saw and photographed a couple of dozen different bird species today. But rather than chasing a higher number, both in the morning and afternoon we tended to concentrate on finding good habitats that gave us better access to specific birds.
September is an interesting time for birds in the Okavango, partly due to the nesting that's going on, partly due to the migrations that are being done through the area (in both directions!). The rains start soon, and that's one of the things that drives all this bird activity this time of year.
