On my most recent trip, which ended earlier this month, I got to take the company camera, a proper SLR, to play around with. Here are a few photos from the trip.
This is a Rueppell's Korhaan, a species only found in the deserts of Namibia and southwest Angola. I particularly like this photo because it really encapsulates the region this species which it lives: an endemic bird, dry grass, mountains constantly in the backdrop, blue skies and the region's most iconic plant in the foreground, Welwitschia mirabilis.
One of my personal highlights of the trip was seeing my first Cape fox. We found a female at a den on an afternoon drive in Etosha National Park, then the next morning found two cubs (one pictured here) playing at the entrence of the den. We then watched the female emerge from the den, run off about 100 meters, catch a large rodent and bring it back to be devoured in one piece by one of the cubs. It was an extraordinary event to witness.
The mousebird family (Coliidae) is found only in Africa. White-backed Mousebird is a common inhabitant of dry scrub in western South Africa and Namibia. This one was photographed on an afternoon outing to Windhoek's sewage treatment plant (maybe I'll make a separate post about birding sewage treatment plants of the world).
African Jacana is a very common resident of wetlands throughout Africa, including the Okavango Delta, where this one was photographed in a channel near Nxamaseri Island Lodge. They are colloquially known as lilytrotters for their habit of walking on lily pads, as this one is doing.
I like this bird, Fan-tailed Widowbird, in part because it reminds of a Red-winged Blackbird. It's sitting on a stalk of papyrus, with a piece of papyrus in its beak that it will use as nesting material. The photo was also taken near Nxamaseri.
