He's baaaack ... The Tale of the Last Safari for 2015

Now our eyes are peeled for the little Malachite. This bird is really small. I'd call it 'hummingbird sized'. SUCCESS! The first one spotted is a juvenile and we are able to get close enough for several keeper images. These birds are shy and will often dart into the deeper rushes if we get to close. For years, this bird was my 'White Whale'. It seemed I didn't see them, they flew away too quickly, I had too low a shutter speed, blew the white on the neck, had the telephoto set on the wrong focus range or something else, but I never seemed to get the shot. I'm not sure if my sill has improved or luck has come my way, but the last 3 or 4 years, I've gotten great shots from close distance.

We also saw a few adult Malachite kingfishers. Since I've been in the bush a number of times, I can stay a long time with a sighting like this, hoping to catch the bird diving for fish (I just missed that). This group of folks are not serious birders, so I have to really listen to how often folks are clicking so I know when to move on. I was pleased with how long they seem to like shooting these little birds. That said, we are doing this on our 6th day of safari and they've seen pretty much everything by now. If I tried this on day one, I would probably have had a mutiny.

As I mentioned on the prior post, this is our sixth day out and also our last day. I asked everyone what they wanted for this final morning and the feedback was simply "let's take it easy and spend some time with what comes along". Okay. Well first up are Cape buffalo eating on a near submerged island. This bull let us get VERY CLOSE. I tried to shoot forward to catch how close Barry was to this bull. The shot doesn't tell the story. When Barry leaned forward with his wide angle lens, he was shooting this animal from only 6 feet away. Awesome.

At another grazing Cape buffalo sighting, we saw a croc sunning with his mouth slightly open. Okay, let's shoot that. We ease the boat over and get some fun shots. When we got a little too close the smallish (2 meter long) croc scooted into the water.

Moving onward, we spent some time with some of the water buck grazing. Here, I have a quite young male water buck.

As we are leaving the water buck we see a few hippos looking at us in a not so friendly way. I love to photo the hippos from low angle.

... but before we visit these hippo, we decide to shoot another nearby herd of Cape buffalo as they had ox peckers playing around them.

And with this last set of images, I am ending our last morning of our last safari of 2015. It's back to the hippos. Not my best hippo shots ever, but still nice images. This group of hippos seemed more aggravated with some nearby birds than us. As I watched these hippos, I am about to head out of Chobe so I reflect on this scene. Just another day on the river, yet within 50 meters of me are: spoonbills, sacred ibis, jacana, open billed storks, cattle egrets, hippo, cape buffalo and in the distance I see elephants, impala, a warthog, and water buck. In a far distant tree, I see two African fish eagles and I can here them calling.

Chobe is an amazing place. It was my first safari destination back in 2005 and it's still one of my favorites. I've already booked the 5 bedroom houseboat shown earlier in this narrative for two trips in 2016. One at the end of June and one in early July. I'm missing it as I write this and can't wait to go back. Let me know if you want to join us on the trip.

Of course I will continue to answer questions about the trip, but this is the end of the photos (I think). Thank you for following this thread and signing off for now, Buddy

What a wonderful travelstory. But I hope to see some of your photos from the Cape too.
thanks.

Seconded.

Please add a link to that thread here when you create it.

primeone wrote in post #17743664
Seconded.

Please add a link to that thread here when you create it.

Good idea. I will do that.

Fantastic thread and some truly excellent images. Brought back many memories of Chobe. Thanks!

What a fantastic series of GORGEOUS photos. I looked at all 11 pages and did not see one that I didn't love.
Thanks for posting them.
Ruth

WOW! Just love this thread, and all the wonderful pics that go with it. Thanks for sharing these amazing experiences with us all, and explaining what is happening in each scene, while keeping it exciting with your excellent story telling skill.

Thank you for taking the time to give us the background story and posting so many wonderful photos.

Very well done.