Magical Mana Pools – Day 3 – Bee Eaters & Lions

The plan for this day was to go a little west of camp to see the Carmine Bee-eaters who are nesting in the bank of the Zambezi at this time of year.  To get there, we had to walk in from the road – it was a perfect morning for a walk and the bee-eaters were waiting for us.

We spent a few minutes with them and it was time to head back to the vehicle.  Along the way, we encountered a troop of baboons, some being silly (as baboons often do) and some beautifully backlit by the early morning light.

A little further down river we found a herd of waterbuck grazing.  Waterbuck are one of the larger antelopes.  Easily distinguished by their long coat and white markings around the neck, eyes and behind, they live in lowland areas near rivers and lakes.

Only the males have horns and the they can be up to 25% larger than the females.  This male was keeping an eye on us, making sure we weren’t a threat to him and his herd of females and young,

The views here are beautiful, looking across the Zambezi river to the hills of Zambia, despite the constant haze.  On the Zambian side, bush fires are a real problem in the dry season.  They have started trying to  manage this with controlled burns.  During our time here, there were fires burning almost every night across the river.  I’m hoping these were controlled burns, but really can’t say one way or another.

Still along the river and pretty much at the park boundary, Cloud spotted this fellow through the thicket.  We approached on foot, ever so slowly and quietly, with Cloud gauging his reaction as we went.  He was watching us but seemed pretty relaxed, what an amazing experience!

We rounded out the morning with one of my favourite birds – the lilac breasted roller, in flight no less!

After lunch and some relaxation back at camp, we headed out for our afternoon drive.  We started slowly, with some elephants cooling themselves with a nice mud bath…

Her mom had her hands full – with a youngster and a baby…

Mana Pools has so much going on, you rarely drive for long without seeing something.  On this occasion, as we were driving up the road, we had to stop.  Much to our surprise, a very full Blondie was literally walking up the road towards us!

He settled in the shade of a tree by the side of the road to rest and to digest.

Then, our patience was rewarded.  He started walking towards one of the pools and we were able to follow on foot!  You really don’t get that close, but we were close enough to know that whatever he’d eaten was slightly rotten.  That is not something that happens every day!

While we were relaxing with Blondie, a family of 3 elephants came down for a drink…

As we were heading to Long pool for sunset with the hippos, we came across Fred…

We were there to watch the sunset.  What fascinates me is that the baboons were also there – seemingly for the same reason.  They all sat at the end of the pool, facing the setting sun.  This is just a small group of them, there had to be 20-30 baboons in attendance!

As the sun sets on yet another fantastic day in Mana Pools, we said good night to the baboons and head back to camp, happy for the day and looking forward to the days to come…