Day 4. Tue 24th September
Kasanka national Park.
Up at 4:30 and on the road by 05:00 with only a cup of coffee and a biscuit
in out stomachs. The wildlife experience starts as soon as we are in the
vehicles - this is Tzetze fly country, and they are out in force. Luckily
it is not far, a 20 minute drive brings us to a hide overlooking the swamp.
The hide is built in a tree and we all climb up the wooden ladder to the
platform 60ft above the forest floor. The dawn is rising and the view is
magnificent.
We have primarily come to see the rare African antelope known as the sitatunga,
and sure enough, the breaking dawn reveals several females grazing in the
swamp below us, including two right under our tree. Unfortunately they
are all either too far away or too well camouflaged to get any decent photographs
- even Nathan has difficulty. A Ross's Loerie, a large black bird with
magnificent red wing tips, settles in a tree, and across the swamp we can
see vervet monkeys frolicing. Then, suddenly, several sitatunga are spooked,
and, pointing our binoculars in the direction from which they are running,
we see, briefly, a cerval cat stalking through the undergrowth. This is
a rare sighting indeed, and it is a real shame that it is too quick and
too far away to photograph.
We leave the hide at about 07:00 and head off through the forest. All
visitors to the park must be accompanied by a guide, and ours takes us
on on a good walk through the trees and onto the plain, where we see several
herds of puku (an antelope of the kob family) including a large male who
tried to run around us and lure us away from his harem. We also see a great
many birds. During the three week trip we see so many birds I soon give
up trying to identify or list them. Nathan and Amanda do pretty well,
although even they find it impossible to identify the hundreds of sub-species,
with the additional variations of male and female, young and mature. Ken,
however, has an encyclopeadic knowledge of all the birds and animals (although
even he makes the occasional mistake, as we shall see). On this occasion
I do note down that we see yellow billed kite, cormorant (yes, really!),
little bee eater, senegalese coucal, wattled crane and crowned hornbill.
About 09:00 we return to the hide to find that there are still some sitatunga
grazing in the open, including a superb male. The Tzetze files seem tohave
been waiting for us in the Land Rover, there are hundreds, like big horseflies
with a bite to match. They are the most tenaceous of insects, and don't
even let go when swatted. Their bodies seem to be impervious to being squashed,
and the only way to kill them is to pick them off between finger and thumb
and squeeze. Rather than have fingers covered in Tzetze juice I use my
hat as a glove - I fear it will never regain its pristine whiteness. Still,
no one goes down with sleeping sickness!
On the drive back to the camp a troupe of yellow baboons cross the
road in front of us and gibber at us from the trees.
We return to the camp for brunch, a siesta, and a late lunch of pasta
and salad, and at about 15:30 set off for another nature walk by the river.
We cross the river on a "ferry" consisting of a platform that is pulled
across the river with a rope. However, as the platform as over half as
long as the river is wide, we wonder if it wouldn't have been easier to
make it a bit longer and call it a bridge! Presumably the situation is
somewhat different in the rainy season when the river is full.
I am still listing wildlife in my notebook, and record steenbok, helmeted
guinea fowl, wattled crane, Boehm's bee-eater, green pidgeon, bulbul, jacana,
and harrier hawk, shrub hare and common duyker (a small antelope).
Dinner at the lodge is interrupted by an uninvited guest, a tiger snake
nestled at the bottom of a tree. Everyone rushes out for a look, including
the camp staff. These snakes can be aggressive but the venom is not dangerous
to humans. This one seemed quite happy to lie back and be photographed.
