Botswana Birds

The good thing about Andy waking me up this morning at 5am is that I actually hunkered down and processed some Botswana images! At the end of June, 2009, we went on a mobile camping safari to Botswana. We’d spent some time in East Africa (Kenya and Tanzania in 2005, Rwanda and Kenya in 2006, and Kenya and Zanzibar in 2007) so this trip was a venture into territory unknown. Little did I know that I would be spending so much time in South Africa RIGHT before this Botswana trip, but no one is complaining ! This trip was also our first venture into the whole camping thing – and I’m totally hooked.

We spend most of our time in the Okavango Delta, an absolute haven for birders (which we do not consider ourselves to be). In our previous safaris, exploration is done via Land Rover / Land Cruiser, but in the delta you travel by boat. And often this boat was a mokoro – a dugout canoe about the width of an American person powered by a pole (think really tiny gondola). I have a video of our arrival at one of the lodges here.

So while COMPLETELY serene and the authentic isolated African experience we were hoping for (no Starbucks – no PIzza Hut – although I was jaw-droppingly happy one of our travel-mates had a portable satellite modem so I could Tweet), taking pictures of birds from a freakin’ wobbly canoe – you have to be JOKING. I thought the white polar bears on white snow was a challenge to photograph – CAKE compared to this. I have so much respect for amazing bird photographs now – here are a few of my faves from our time in the delta (click for larger versions).

Fisheagle