Two months in bush, two weeks out for staff here at Lemala.  Lots of lions roaring all night. Coffee in bed at 06:00, breakfast 06:30, in truck at 07:00. Pick fire ant off Bev’s thigh. Giraffe at peak of hill 300 yards left.   Two white browed coucalls mating on Valentine’s Day. Happy, happy.  Both puffed up. Hyena prints in the mud, mongoose next to road at 3 ft. Serval cat walking on road hunting in grass while flappet lark flaps noisily and rattling coucal sings.   Coucalls  steal the nest of another bird, dumps the eggs of the mother out, lays her own eggs,  and never comes back to nest. The false mother hatches eggs and never knows they are not her own.  Coucalls are bigger than the false mother and it’s very hard work for the small mother to feed the large false kids, so they have to leave the nest early!!!   Pond w crocodile, 10 or 12 hippos and black crake bird in mud.   Tawny eagle above road in tree.   08:21 am now.   Black headed heron on stump by road.  Eats snakes, mice, fish. Red billed oxpecker high in a tree, 30 yards further a crested eagle 10 yards left,  right a small bee eater 10 yards.  Both very impressive.  Bee eater flies from bush, grabs bug and flies back five times in two minutes. Look these two up!   08:34   Red necked spur fowl on ground. Hippo out of water grazing left, pink face looks at us.  Rumbles back into water.  They graze at night, in water in day when sun is strong.   Three jackals in the road ahead. Red faced crombec in bush. White headed buffalo weaver on road.

  Buffalo weaver makes a nest for female, the female inspects it. If she rejects the nest he takes it down and builds another. May build 20 nests!!!  Comments?   Sand grouse on ground right side.  Another new bird. “Tire pressure check” now.  Means pee in back of truck. Bev swatting her ass as flies land in large numbers. 08:57   Small turn and very large eagle standing in road. Grand.  Much debate.  Decide sub adult fish eagle. 10 yards.  Rare to see any eagle less than 200 yards in America! Giraffe family with one small baby, seven feet high.  Oxpecker feeding at scrotum of male water buffalo with a broken horn from fighting.  Giraffes eat day and night.   Warthog rambles around, millions of flies on head and neck.  Jumps in mud sticks head in to escape.  Warthogs use giraffes as watchtowers. When they stop eating warthog knows there is real trouble.   Marabou stork ahead.  Sits calmly ten feet away.  0ver three feet high.  Closer than at the zoo.   09:52   Just six more hours to go.  Lunch boxes today. Black chested fish eagle and snake eagle hunt in the sky above, circling low.   Very fat hyena coming right at us in the middle of the road, very pregnant.

Goes around us in the grass and back on the road, ‘cuz walking on the road is much easier for them than taller grass.   10:16.   I’m only telling you the best stuff. Two lesser kestrels sit on a short bush.  Battery dead now so goodby.