Africa Trip, March 2016 Namibia Day by Day 3. Halali Rest Camp 1 of 3

As we exit Namutoni on Sunday the 20th about noon, headed for Halali, we are observed by two (at least) Banded Mongoose. (Mongeese? Mongooses?)

Sorry to say I never got a good picture of these guys face on, but I did get one (the next day) moving away and showing his banding pretty well

So here;s a great shot from Wikipedia:

Apropos of the pictures I did get, I will note that I was just a tagalong on a family outing whose purpose was not photo ops!

Next along our route were the impala. These beautiful animals are all around the Etosha National Park, so good pictures were easy to get. In this one, you can see three termite mounds behind the impala, both grey with age, showing, I suppose, that they are no longer inhabited by termites.,

The horse-sized zebra that came next help us visualize both the size and the prevalance of the impala. Notice five in this picture just down the road.

I recall Eric telling me that the lions don’t usually bother with the impala because they’re not enough calories for the trouble. Zebras are worth it.

Speaking of size and prevelance, this snapshot through a window shows a white stretch of the Etosha Pan in the middle distance with maybe 10 wildebeest. But if you go to count them, you will notice maybe a hundred impala between them and the pan. Click the picture for a larger view, and click that view to return to this page.

A little luck and the wise suggestion from son-in-law’s brother Jeff to use the AI Servo setting on my old Canon Rebel produced two pretty much in-focus pictures of the African Fish Eagle in flight:

The wingspan of this bird is given as 1.9 meters in Birds of Southern Africa.

Quite a common bird along our way was the European Bee Eater. These colors are not touched up!

This bird is quite common in South Africa, breeding in Europe and North Africa, it migrates here in the (SA) summer. So it shold be about to move north in late March as we are. On the other hand, the local bird book says some breed down here also.

We came across a large herd of impalas along with giraffes. The impalas (click for a larger view):

The giraffe:

In fact there were quite a few giraffes at this spot between Namutoni and Halali, but I didn’t notice any small ones. Here’s a big guy eating from a tree top:

On this day we also saw a good many jackals, the fellows who had walked right through our camp back at Namutoni the night before. This is the blackbacked jackal.

And the ostrich showed up, but this is the Kori Bustard, which a guy like me might take for an ostrich:

The actual ostriches showed up usually as black bushes in the distance:

The next day I got a little closer:

This page has gotten quite long already just because this day traveling in Etosha Park was such a good day for animals. The next day was also, and we saw elephants besides, so I’ll skip to a second page on the Halali Rest Camp day.

Next page.