morning walk at Xoba Lodge

Nope, they don't know best.  Despite sprays and coils and creams the lack of net proved decisive and we both got properly bitten for the first time on the holiday with around 15 bites between us.  This in Malaria central.  Frankly this is irresponsible.   We did finish the course of anti-malarials to give ourselves the best chance of not getting it though.

Anyway a pre-breakfast birding walk was called for.  This time the Lodge Manager decided to guide us and we immediately went in search of an owl he had heard.  We did locate it, an African Barred Owlet:

Morning really is the very best time to be birding here and again we saw a lot, including African Fish Eagle:

Common Waxbill:

Myer's Parrot

Pin-tailed Wydah:

Red-backed Shrike:

This bird proved quite contentious and took repeat approaches to get a picture I could show with the bill shape, etc., for it be accepted.  But with a bit of patience we positively identified it!

The next bird is a cracker, Retz's Helmetshrike, a really odd looking bird:

The Lodge Manager kept grabbing us to try and locate the local Southern Black Tit, third time lucky we did indeed see one!

Another Palearctic migrant - Spotted Flycatcher:

This one had me confused for a while, turns out it's a female Violet-backed Starling:

And then, at last, a decent picture of a White-bellied Sunbird:

After breakfast we packed-up and headed on, this time about 3 hours towards Windhoek, just to the right of Rundu.  That meant going back in to Namibia and saying goodbye to Botswana, which we really enjoyed.