Aug 17 – Kafunta River Lodge, South Luangwa National Park, Zambia

Had a colorful sunrise this morning. 

During the drive though the bush the guides pointed out many features of the environment, in addition to the animals.

Sausage Trees – the huge fruits are loved by elephants, zebras and many of the other animals.  They are quite heavy so one wouldn’t want to stand under a tree and get hit on the head by one of these big things.

Nile Lettuce pond.  We saw some interesting birds here.

A few of the more some interesting birds we saw here.

Saddle Billed Stork with its very distinctive coloration on the bill.

Green Backed Heron

Baobab trees.

And some of the baobabs had small tufts of green in them.  These were tiny Leopard Orchids.

There were a lot of termite mounds everywhere.

This beautiful flowering tree is the pink jacarandas.  We have seen the purple ones many places but never pink.

Weaver birds make these interesting weaver nests.

Mangos.

These red-carpet creepers can become so dense that they can kill a tree.

This evening, we took a night safari.  The spotter scans the woods and bush with a bright spotlight.  Any animals present can be seen by the bright reflection of the spotlight in their eyes.    

After the hunt we settled in for dinner on the lower deck of our compound to enjoy the wildlife, mainly hippos, in the grasslands beyond our deck.  

Just as we were finishing dinner, we noticed a hippo just below the deck.  After grazing there for a while the hippo decided that there was fresh grass to be had up by our cabins…so she clambered the slope directly adjacent to the deck.  We all quickly vacated and clapped for the security guard.  They were there quickly and kept an eye on the hippo.  And eventually convinced it to vacate the premises. 

Sunset at the end of a good day.

For more photos of the animals and birds that we saw during our time in Zambia click on the following links.