A night of the deepest sounds of Africa, at Mahove camp on the Runde river. After a gentle, magical afternoon of sketching the baobabs close to camp, whilst listening to a cow herd of elephants splashing their way across the Runde River, I return to camp as a fire is lit and dusk falls. The Safari vehicle departed long ago. Clive, Derek and Sarah Soloman were on a mission to record Eco-sounds in cathedral Mopani woodland, I am content, sitting alone to watch the nightjars flit silently above the reed bed below me, catching the hundreds of insects that are invisible to my poor human eyes.
James, Titus and Vincent potter about laying a pretty table for dinner and cooking up a storm in the bush kitchen.
After a bush dinner par excellence, chirping frogs and a toad or two lull us all to sleep in the row of green tents that string along the banks of the Runde River.
The darkness brings the distant roar of lions coming ever closer. and closer….!
Scops owls purr, and Giant Eagle owls call sonorously.
Jackals yodel and sing all night and the earlydawn light brings the clatter of Spurfowl and booming Southern ground hornbills,
Fish Eagles, Hadeda, Doves, Bulbuls and Go away birds round out the dawn chorus as Grey headed parrots begin to call and flit from tall tree to tall tree…..
By sunrise I am wandering through the baobabs on the ridge behind the camp. Watching the new day break the baobab-studded horizon and listening to at least three giant Eagle owls call around me. Every baobab has a character and the silhouettes are endlessly inspiring in the orange glow of the sun…
Ragged Lala palm fronds, chewed red by passing elephants, form fascinating foregrounds against the sky.
Maerua edulis flowers sparkle in the early morning light, as the early morning rays of sun finger an old impala skull, remnants of a wild dog kill….
http://www.zimbabweflora.co.zw/speciesdata/species.php…