We had another cloudy morning start today, but a bit of a warmer start.

We were greeted early on by some elephants.

Wild dog prints were picked up and tracked by multiple guides, including ours. We spent much of the morning trying to find the pack to no avail. 

We did run across a bunch of dwarf mongoose. Mongoose are challenging to photograph  because they move quickly and hide away. These moved to their termite mound home and felt comfortable enough there to stay out.

These little guys eat insects, spiders, scorpions, eggs, and fruit.

Tawny eagle

Elephant eating deep in the bush.

Brown-headed green parrot

Warthogs at the waterhole at lunch.

Weaverbird nest

There apparently was an elephant convention here earlier with all of the prints. They are large ovals.

Our guide taught us a few things about elephant prints. For example, if you measure from front print to front print you get the length of the elephant from shoulder to pelvis and from there you can estimate the size of the elephant. You can get an idea of the speed that the elephant was walking based on how much or how little prints of the front and back feet overlap. Also, the prints for the front feet are bigger than the back.

White backed vulture sitting on a very big nest

Some afternoon mongoose.

Southern yellow-billed hornbills mate for life. When they nest the female encloses herself in a nest made of mud and droppings, leaving a slit open. The male brings her food through this slit and the female passes droppings out of it. During this time, the female and the chicks are protected. Mom leaves the nest when the chicks are half- grown. The chicks re-seal the nest and they stay inside until they are ready to fly.

Flap- necked chameleon. This guy was quite small and this picture was taken in full dark with a spotlight.  He blended in well with the little green leaves.

Something decent-sized, like an anteater, lived here at some point but it looks abandoned now. FYI, South Africans call anteaters ant bears, which I particularly like.

A walking stick insect blew into our vehicle and onto our guide and it ended up walking over all of us.