Tag: Botswana

The National Bird …

… of Botswana is the Kori Bustard, the subject of many traditional stories and a symbol of strength, power, and resilience. Frequently a motif in traditional art and craft, they are large, graceful and beautifully camouflaged.

Kori Bustard
Kori Bustard

I will be missing for a few days. I’m going camping. The area I’ll be visiting looks very much like parts of Botswana. The Australian Bustard (when I typed Australian Bustard the spell checker signaled an error. Is it guilty of racial vilification?) – get to the point, Robert. I took the next photo there on my last visit, similar country, similar bird.

Australian Bustard

One major difference in the Australian bush is that I can go behind a termite mound for a pee without worrying about lions …

Nature Red in Tooth and Claw …

In 1850 Alfred Lord Tennyson published the poem In Memoriam A.H.H. It commemorated the life of his friend Arthur Henry Hallam who had died at just 22 years of age 17 years earlier. It was at a time when science and religion were posing different answers to the fundamental questions. It was an immense work (2,916 lines and getting bigger in subsequent editions). Tennyson wasn’t the first or last to wonder if God is the great and good creator of all why He is so careless with individual lives …

Are God and Nature then at strife,
That Nature lends such evil dreams?
So careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life;

Darwin’s Origin of Species came in 1859. One of Tennyson’s 2,916 lines, perhaps the most memorable of them all, came to sum up the implications of the survival of the fittest.

Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation’s final law
Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek’d against his creed

Bad Boy …

I once went on a walking safari. You can read about it. Day 1 is <HERE>. The safety briefing was a gem. In it I learnt that most charges that I could expect to face would be mock charges. But if it was a buffalo it would be for real.

Our pick up point was 20 km away. It soon became apparent that there was a very strung out herd of buffalo in between. This meant a significant detour. Late lunch that day.

Sandgrouse …

Inhabitants of dry open country, sixteen species spread across Africa, Asia and just making it across the Mediterranean into Spain. They are primarily seed eaters. They are well camouflaged and usually seen exploding out of close by vegetation and flying quickly away. Their belly feathers are adapted to absorb and transport water enabling them to raise chicks at some distance from the drinking supply.

Got lucky with this pair of Double-banded Sandgrouse. They stuck around long enough for a couple of shots, male on the left …

Elephant …

I met my first wild Elephant on the 16th of August 1997. You never forget your first.

It was first thing in the morning of our first day on safari, Mombo, Botswana. I had the rear seat of an open safari vehicle. We came upon a youngish male. He was running along thrashing the vegetation. The driver/guide pointed out the secretion of temporin running down its face and the seminal fluid dripping from its penis. Told us that its testosterone levels were through the roof. Its mania was due to the state of musth, an annual event for bull elephants over about 30 years of age. After a while we overtook it and continued on our way.

About 15 minutes later we came upon our first collection of Impala. We stopped with our rear wheels in a bit of a ditch and turned off the engine. Our driver/guide pointed out that this was a male and his harem and began to explain the exhausting and competitive life of the male Impala. Turned three quarters around to address his guests he was well placed to notice a maniacal male elephant charging the back of the vehicle. He immediately started the engine and set about rectifying the situation.

But forgot that the rear wheels were in a bit of a ditch and stalled the engine. Valuable moments were lost. The engine was restarted, many more revs were injected and we were on the way again. The elephant had its head down, fortunately for me because those tusks could easily have impaled me. Its forehead hit the rear end of the vehicle but by that stage our relative velocities dampened the impact to a minor blow.

Those were the days of single shot exposures and 200 ASA colour slide film. The head filled the frame but it wasn’t a keeper, poor focus and too much motion blur.