SUMMER BIRDING TRIP: Day Four: Chobe National Park

At around 8 am in the morning, we left Victoria Falls Game Lodge and were driven to the Botswana border. Here we went through the necessary formalities with a friendly immigration officer, who greeted us with a 'G'day mate!' when he saw our Australian passports. It took only a few minutes to fill out the necessary paperwork before heading onward. I was able to see several Cape glossy starlings and a collared palm-thrush around the immigration centre, however I didn't get any photos of them. The drive towards Chobe Game Lodge was filled with birds. In particular, many beautiful lilac-breasted rollers were visible. Once in the national park, we stopped the jeep to take photos of some impala. 

Impala males often break their antlers through these fights.

This impala was quite unafraid of our jeep, happily grazing just next to it.

After fighting, this male impala looked warily at us, making sure we weren't a threat.

Upon arriving at the lodge, we were told we had around 30 minutes to wait before our rooms would be ready. I walked around the lodge, looking for birds. A boardwalk on the banks of the Chobe River produced several pied kingfishers, a distant reed cormorant and wire-tailed swallow perched on a branch and a nearby African jacana, one of my target species. Shrubs below the boardwalk sheltered 2 swamp boubous, which flew off as soon as I neared them. Striped skinks and tree squirrels were common all over the lodge. The woodland surrounding the lodge was full of supposedly 'secretive' white-browed robin-chats, which were extremely tame and sometimes flew right up to us. Large trees around the pool held violet-backed starlings, African paradise flycatchers, go-away birds, bearded woodpeckers, yellow-bellied greenbuls, dark-capped bulbuls, ring-necked doves and red-eyed doves. Around the dock, a pair of African pied wagtails strode along a table on a boat. Best of all, a pair of rare Schalow's turacos were jumping between the branches of a tree directly behind the boardwalk.

The purple upperparts of this violet-backed starling show that it is a male

The Schalow's turaco was named after ornithologist Herman Schalow

The bearded woodpecker is one of many similar woodpeckers that inhabits Botswana

The African pied wagtail is Botswana's only black-and-white species of wagtail

African jacanas are also known as Jesus birds, as they can walk on floating lilies

Subspecies wahlbergi of the striped skink is common in northern Botswana

Tree squirrels were surprisingly terrestrial, given their name

The yellow-bellied greenbul belongs to an Africa-restricted group of bulbuls

The African paradise flycatcher has a tail more than double its body length

White-browed robin-chats were a common sight around the game lodge

After relaxing in our rooms and walking around the lodge, we left on a game drive. We'd originally planned to do a boat trip, but it began to rain so we had a guided game drive instead. This turned out to work in our favour as after the rain stopped a wide variety of birds and mammals were visible. We got great views of a small pride of lions, including one cub. Chacma baboons, vervet monkeys, kudu and impala were common throughout the park. At one large waterhole, we got amazing looks at hippo grazing the land above the water and fighting in the waterhole's depths. Chobe area specialties such as trumpeter hornbill and white-crowned lapwing were seen, along with more common birds like African stonechats, lilac-breasted rollers, Cape glossy starlings, greater blue-eared starlings, helmeted guineafowl, red-billed spurfowl, broad-billed rollers, swamp boubous, spotted dikkops and even a spotted flycatcher. Along the Chobe River's banks and on the edges of the many waterholes in the park were pied and grey-headed kingfishers, water dikkops, goliath and grey herons, various egrets, blacksmith plovers, African fish-eagles and African jacanas. All in all it was an extremely successful game drive.

The African stonechat was once considered conspecific with the European stonechat

The spotted dikkop is also known as the spotted thick-knee

The goliath heron is the world's largest heron, growing up to 150 centimetres tall

Hippo have extremely sun-sensitive skin and only leave the water when it isn't sunny

Hippo are extremely territorial, using their sharp teeth to fight against each other

Lions hunt during the evenings and night, spending most of the day resting

The Cape glossy starling is common in most of southern Africa

Kudu like damp places, and the rain before our drive brought out several herds of them

The blacksmith plover's call is said to sound like metal being hammered on an anvil

Helmeted guineafowl can be eaten, but take several hours to cook

The Chobe River is the white-crowned lapwing's stronghold in Botswana

Swamp boubous belong to an African group of birds known as the bushshrikes

Chacma baboons are quite troublesome animals, sometimes breaking into unlocked houses

The grey-headed kingfisher is a somewhat uncommon migrant to Botswana

Spotted flycatchers migrate all the way from Europe to southern Africa

Vervet monkeys are common in much of southern and eastern Africa

The greater blue-eared starling's blue ear coverts tell it apart from other species

The Chobe area is the only place in Botswana where trumpeter hornbills are common

The broad-billed roller migrates to southern Africa from further north in the continent

Though African fish-eagles mostly eat fish, in some areas they prey on flamingoes

Red-billed spurfowl were common in Chobe, but we didn't see any at Victoria Falls

The water dikkop's grey-brown wings distinguish it from the spotted dikkop