Day 6 - Moving on from Ruaha to Selous

This morning we are up early again. We say goodbye to Rebecca and set off on our last game drive with Ayoub and Dismas. This morning, as there are only 2 of us in the car, we have Oscar with us as well. Oscar is a trainee guide.....so now the guides out number us! We are focussing on birds this morning though obviously we also see the usual selection antelope, giraffe, monkeys, kudu etc. I will post a few photos of birds but hopefully not too many to bore people who are not "birders" - However be warned there will be more birds later.

You have to smile at these monkeys

Cute

Martial Eagle

Black and White Cuckoo

These Red Necked Spurfowl are everywhere so not an exciting sighting - but I liked this photo so included it

Speckled Mouse Bird

Westen Violet Backed Sunbird - you can really see the violet!

Jameson's Firefinch

Greater Honeyguide

We will miss the scenery in Ruaha

Athough we have seen a lot of Greater Kudu in Ruaha, I haven't included many photos - so here is one from this morning

About 9.30am we stop for our bush breakfast. We decide to give Ayoub and Dismas their tips now, rather than at the airstrip, when goodbyes can end up being quite rushed. Also there is no need for selfies this morning as we can get Oscar to take some photos.

Me, Ayoub, Pete and Dismas

So after breakfast it is time to head to the airstrip. On the way we see a small bird that the guys struggle to identify and we don't have time to stop and search the books. Ayoub says he will message me later with the ID. For now we are calling it the "Homework Bird". We also see some more elephants and a giraffe who has suffered an incident resulting in him losing most of his tail.

When we arrive at the arrive at the airstrip, the plane is already there, so we quickly say goodbye to the guys and within a few minutes we are airborne and on our way to Selous where we still for the next 4 nights

Elephants on the other side of the river bed

I know I have already posted lots of elephant photos - but this guy made us smile as he had a good itch!

The Homework Bird - After some discussion we now think this is a Chestnut Weaver

This giraffe has lost its tail

Ruaha from the air

Coming in to land in Selous - Very green compared to Ruaha

It is about a 90 minute flight to Selous. The flight is good, just a little bit of turbulence. We land safely and are met by Ally and Haruan from Lake Manze Camp. We know Ally from our last visit so it is good to see him again and it is nice to meet Haruan. Haruan suggests we drive back to the camp for lunch and then we can decide how we want to spend our afternoon.

On arrival at Lake Manze we are met by Millie and Shaun, the managers. Millie actually greets us saying "Welcome home" which is lovely. We head into camp as lunch is ready and find Olaf and Christine already there. It turns out we are the only 4 staying in camp tonight. We have a nice lunch and it is good to catch up with everyone.

Lake Manze offers game drives, boat safaris and walking safaris. We decide we will do a boat safari this afternoon and then a full day game drive with Christine and Olaf  tomorrow. After lunch we are shown to our tent, its the one beside Christine and Olaf and has a good view of the lake.

Inside our tent

The view from our tent

Our Tent

We unpack and then meet up with Ally who drives us down to the lake. Here we meet up with Abdullah, who we also met last year and Jackson, who is a student guide.

The boat safaris at Lake Manze are great. They are really relaxing yet you get to see loads with little effort! This afternoon Abdullah is driving the boat but he lets Jackson act as our guide, just stepping in when he feels things need a little correcting or further explanation. Jackson actually does pretty well and I think he will make a good guide. 

The weather this afternoon looks overcast and the sky is quite "moody" but we are lucky and there is no rain. During the afternoon I keep a list of all the different birds we photograph which totals over 30 - not bad for a couple of hours. These include a fish eagle catching a fish (no photo of the actual event as it happened so fast), various herons and storks and many different kingfishers including a giant kingfisher. We also see crocodiles, hippos, cat fish, buffalo and even a terrapin. Here are just a few of the photos

Black Winged Stilt

Hadada Ibis

Moody Weather

African Spoonbill

Hippos

A good place to perch

Giant Kingfisher

Malachite Kingfisher

Goliath Heron

Striated Heron

Buffalo

Common Squacco Heron

Open Billed Stork

Crocodile

Terrapin

As the sun starts to set a group of elephants approach the lake and decide to cross. It is really beautiful to watch them, silhouetted against the African sky. One small elephant nearly disappears under the water where it get deeper. Then once they reach the bank 2 young bull elephants start to "play" fight before running off to catch up with the rest of the herd. It is a lovely end to our boat safari.

Elephants on the far shore

Starting to cross the lake

Drinking

Look carefully and you will see the little one holding the tail of the one in front

Playtime

Another drink

Young bulls play fighting

Beautiful sunset

Ally meets us back at shore and drives us back to camp where there is just time for a quick shower before dinner. There is just the 6 of us at dinner so its just like having a meal at a friend's house. At dinner Shaun tells us that Haruan found out this afternoon, that his father had had a stroke, so Shaun had arranged for him to travel home. So tomorrow we will have Kalisti as our guide and of course Ally as our driver. We have arranged that we will go out for a full day with Olaf and Christine taking breakfast and lunch with us. It will be fun to be back together again.