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I feel I hardly need to provide an introduction to this post ... but if this the first Mexico trip you've joined me on, the following are photos from my favorite little lagoon at Playa Linda, Ixtapa, Mexico. It's known by several names: the crocodile farm (but it's not a farm), the crocodile refuge, the crocodile reserve, Popoyote lagoon, and probably by others. It's a reserve, vaguely fenced off from the public, designated originally for the protection of the American crocodile. However, the lagoon ecosystem is also home to many beautiful species of birds, iguanas, turtles and other creatures. Since I started visiting there, I've watched the roseate spoonbill population explode. I've gotten more adept at spotting smaller birds such as the green heron, which has become a favorite of mine. And I've become fascinated by two types of lizards ... perhaps the most amazing thing of all since I am not a lizard kind of gal. Mostly I am repulsed by them. But these crocodiles and iguanas have opened my eyes and my heart to watching them more closely and appreciating them in their natural environment. 

So without further ado ... not much text to accompany this post, just enjoy my menagerie of lagoon creatures. Yes, it's MY menagerie! To see my encounters with them in years past, please see the Ixtapa archive HERE. It feels like my personal little lagoon, haha.

Who to start with? Well why not start with my favorite photo between these two years. A green heron, the light shining on his opened wings to show their impressive iridescence. But I think its little head playing peek-a-boo from under its wing is cuter than all get-out. One of those wonderful surprises, I only saw this detail after getting home and looking at the pics on my large computer monitor. Yet another lesson in not deleting anything on your camera until you get home!  

I think one of the most interesting things about the green heron is how different it looks depending on the lighting and the bird's posture. More green herons .....

One exciting thing about 2018 was that I saw a brand new species, the wood stork. We visited a couple weeks earlier than we historically have, and caught the migration of wood storks passing through the area. As I've gotten pretty used to the same cast of characters, it was a really nice change. 

Whilst on the topic of new sights ... I've taken hundreds of photos of the crocodiles by now, but this is the first one showing a remarkable gradation of pastel colors inside the crocodile's mouth. And it's not just a one-off anomaly ... I took several shots of this open mouth, all came out the same. Who would have guessed the mouth of such a fearsome, vicious creature would be a sweet and gentle rainbow?!  

Now this guy, while not as large, is a better example of the terrifying perception we have of these ancient reptiles. 

Although crocodiles are one of the few animals who can eat turtles because they're able to crunch through their hard shells, the turtles still like to use the crocodiles as water taxis and sunny resting spots. Hard to know if they're simply blasé about the danger or if the crocodiles are so adept at being incognito that the turtles are oblivious. 

The iguanas continue to fascinate me. I also get a kick out of the other tourists around me who are visiting for the first time when they spot their first large male iguana. They get quite excited, and because I've taken so many pictures of iguanas already, I am often looking at something else. So a lot of them tap me and say, "Look, look, there's a big one right there!" as if I cannot see it. 

This guy looks so pensive, perhaps daydreaming of some pretty green female he's smitten over.

What I like about the first pic below is the shadow cast on the ground. The iguana in the second pic is looking pretty mean, maybe going to have a few words with somebody ..... 

Here is a, umm, brown bird. I was pretty happy to get a shot of it tossing a fish up in the air before gulping it down. 

Even though they are common birds, I find the egrets to be elegant creatures with their pristine white feathers, and I enjoy watching them with their long toes and slender beaks. 

And last, but very far from least, a few photos of the roseate spoonbill birds. New visitors to the lagoon have the same response to the spoonbills as to the male iguanas, often poking me and pointing them out while I'm busy photographing something else. But it's OK; sometimes it's a tourist who has gotten me to swivel my head back to the birds out of politeness to their poking just in time to catch a new behavior. Like a spoonbill having a standoff with an iguana. The look on the iguana's face cracks me up -- he looks like he's saying to me, "Do you see what I have to put up with?"

A spoonbill gathering sticks for its nest. 

And a classic spoonbill pose, preening his feathers. Or her feathers ... unlike some birds, the males and females have the same coloring. 

Perhaps, dear reader, you are beginning to feel like this little lagoon belongs to you, too, by now! Hope you enjoyed another round of photos with these beautiful creatures. 

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Nothing but pics in this post. Please enjoy the animals. Savuti is part of the Chobe National Park system in the Okavango Delta region of Botswana. Of the four parks in the Delta we visited, Savuti was the most dry, and I often found the word "desolate" bouncing around my head, even though that's not really apt. But there's something lonesome about the scenery. And it was littered with elephant bones, which gave it kind of an ominous feel, like we were stepping into a more wild frontier. 

 But there were plenty of alive elephants, too! We watched them at a very nice water hole one evening. 

Daytime water hole. Man-made hole, water pumped in. Seems like a good idea to quench parched elephants and other critters in the brutal dry season, and works well for safari visitors to see a nice clump of animals. But our guide pointed out that it disrupts the animals' natural migration and wandering patterns and they may stay around the area when they really should be moving on, when nature would take away the water and coax them into their traditional patterns. So there are good and bad aspects to it. The second pic down, it's not even in focus but I really liked how the branches stick up behind the elephant's head like a little wacky hairdo. Mad scientist elephant. 

But even in the dry season, beautiful flowers make their way into the landscape. This is a rather indelicate name for a delicate flower: knobbly combretum. 

And they are super yummers to the giraffes. 

My favorite African bird ... really my favorite bird, period ... is the lilac breasted roller. We had some gorgeous lighting on it one morning. 

Here's a new bird for me, a korhaan doing a mating dance for a rather unimpressed female. Our guide said he'd never seen that bird in mating form before. It was hilarious to watch him chase the female around and subject her to watching the big red bloom open up on his head. She just didn't care and would scamper off, only to be pursued and re-subjected. Poor guy. I personally think his flower-like hat is rather dashing! 

Savuti was the second place we witnessed the grace and intensity of a leopardess (read more about that amazing, magical experience HERE). Here are a couple more shots of her. 

The terrain in Savuti was more rugged than the other parks we visited in the Okavango region. Can you pick out the elephants here walking up the rocky hill? Not the typical landscape for an elephant. 

This little elephant on the side of the road says, "good night!"

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Chobe National Park in northern Botswana is renowned for its elephant population, particularly dense during Botswana's winter months, May-September. The Chobe River attracts herds of them who come to drink, swim, and frolic in the mud. The best way to see this is to take a boat ride. And so we did. It's truly great fun to watch them playing in the mud. This was the best viewing I've had on any safari yet of baby elephants ... something I'm always craving to see more of. Simply glimpsing them standing beside their mothers and family is an adorable sight.

But watching them play and wrestle with each other in the mud was a delight of a whole new order.  

But it's not as if the adults weren't getting a little goofy and playful themselves. I think this might be my favorite photo from the whole trip, this adult elephant in this comical position, head-first in the mud, back leg up in the air.  

Naturally, we ran into several of one of the African waters' primary inhabitants: hippos. I always like seeing their titanic bodies out of the water. This one has a little egret friend with him. 

And the other more sinister ubiquitous creature lurking in the African waters: a NIle crocodile. I've become rather fond of crocodiles as a result of all my trips to the crocodile reserve in Mexico. But only when they are lying still and not menacing anybody! I like how the sun lit up his scales to a rather golden hue. 

The elephants do not seem to mind these sets of vicious teeth all around them as they frolic. What a joy to see a whole family joining in the muddy fun all together.  Some other creatures stood along the banks during our boat ride. A young waterbuck, quite adorable, I must say, looking all shaggy and fuzzy, his white target ring just beginning to show on his butt. Next pic down, his mom and dad (presumably, though they could be complete strangers in the same place at the same time) -- a male and female waterbuck, and a couple impala in the foreground.

An African darter. 

We  also had some more delightful southern carmine bee-eater sightings throughout Chobe National Park, whom we'd first spotted in Moremi. How can you not be smitten with these colorful creatures? 

And this was unexpected to me ... another animal I love from my contact with them in Mexico: the spoonbill. These, however, are African spoonbills rather than roseate. You can probably guess that they're the guys standing on either side of the yellow-billed stork. I like when birds are given practical, obvious names ... much easier to remember!  

Marabou storks ... hard to get a sense of scale here, but they're huge birds, standing about four feet high, and can have wing spans approaching 8 feet. They're also creepy. They're also cool. They're also little devils. I had to contend with them while I worked in the UWEC (Entebbe zoo). There was one who sometimes stood around the cafe patio where I ate, and he stole a big piece of chicken right off my plate. I was so diligent to keep an eye on the vervet monkeys so they didn't steal anything, and then that marabou walks by and snatches up my dinner. 

And of course the ubiquitous red-billed hornbill. I still think they're neat.  

A very non-ubiquitous critter is the honey badger. I caught a glimpse of one running away in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve the previous year, but we had two very nice sightings in Chobe. Difficult to photograph as it was surrounded by tall weeds and was mosting moving. These are very clever creatures ... I saw a TV show about one in a sanctuary who ingeniously figured out how to escape from an enclosure first by simply climbing the fence and unlocking the gate, then by digging a tunnel underneath a cement wall, then by rolling rocks over to the wall, stacking them up and standing on them until he was tall enough to climb over the wall, then by moving branches to form a ladder and climb over the wall, then any tools like rakes or shovels left by workers in the enclosure he used as ladders. Very funny. But they are also quite renowned for their ferocity. 

Sable antelope are quite shy and not terribly common to see either. We saw some up in northern Namibia in Bwabwata and the Mahango Core Area. But these were the only ones we got a good, if fleeting, look at in Botswana. Their latin name is kind of funny: hippotragus niger. They don't seem very hippo-like to me, haha. 

Another little creature not terribly common to see was a slender mongoose. In these poses, I'd call him plump before I'd call him slender! But his long tail seems like his most distinguishing feature! Were it me, I think I'd name him a black-tipped mongoose. 

Botswana's Chobe National Park borders Namibia along the Caprivi Strip, the two countries divided by a ribbon of water. We spent our evenings down near this stretch of water with elephants and lions all around us. The lions were typically on our side of the water watching the elephants typically on the opposite side. 

Not the grandest photo in quality, but I just really like how that whole line of elephants is drinking. Obviously a thirsty bunch. 

Now ... are you ready for some lions?? We watched this pride come back from the water to their homebase in the bushes as the sun was setting. Something magical about a big family trotting home after a hard day watching elephants and zebras and other potential prey. But first, before heading back, this little lion practices his fiercest expressions. Gotta be ready for when the day comes he's old enough to hunt himself!

So as we're sitting in the vehicle, the water at the Namibian border is on our left, we're parked just outside a kind of wall of low bushes along the edge of the marsh on our right. Baboons are sitting along this same strip quietly grooming each other as the sun nears the horizon. The lion pride reaches the bushes in front of us and disappears into them as if it's some kind of magical doorway, like the fabled hole in the back of the wardrobe. The bushes don't seem dense enough or extensive enough to hide a pride; I expected that when we drove our vehicle back through the bushes toward camp, we would see them on the other side. But we didn't. They vanished somewhere. We saw the same thing the following night. And driving by there another time during the middle of the day, a male and female emerged as if by magic from that same doorway. It was peculiarly mysterious. Sisters sit near the "doorway" here. 

This is from a different part of the park and at sunrise rather than sunset, but you know how I love capturing a critter with its tongue out. Even very large, intimidating critters. 

And guess what: We weren't done seeing leopards! So in three of the four parks we visited in the Okavango Delta, we saw leopards. Considering I had hoped to see this animal in particular on this trip, I think we did pretty well! Can you pick out her face in the first pic below? :-) 

While the leopard is the manifestation of stealth and grace, the cape buffalo can generally be taken as the dictionary illustration of "cantankerous." The males in particular being notoriously ill-tempered. But sometimes they look sweet as can be, like they would never scare a fly. The first one below calmly lets his oxpecker friend clean his hide, not minding the indignity of having a bird perched on his face. And I think the last buffalo is hoping to get on the cover of GQ Buffalo. Maybe he's singing, "I'm a sexy beast!"

OK, dear reader, thanks for hanging out with me on yet another virtual safari!  If I'm still maintaining this blog next year (2019), you'll probably get to join me on a whole new set of safari adventures. (and p.s. if you're not already a subscriber, if you don't want to miss when a new post goes up, enter your email address into the "Updates" bubble on the right!) 

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In our four-park safari through the Okavango Delta, the second place we stayed was the Khwai Concessions. At the end of the day, I think this was my favorite. I liked the terrain, the landscape, it had the greenest, wettest and most vibrant feel to it. Perhaps suffering through the heat made me feel unduly appreciative of this nature. But also, we had my favorite sightings here. The most stunning was our encounter with a leopard, which you can read more about in my Tuesday Tale, "The Leopardess: Encounters in Botswana." But here are a few extra pics of her: 

In my previous Botswana post, "Back on Safari in Moremi Woo-Hoo!" I mentioned how excited I was to see African wild dogs, also known as painted dogs. I had been pleased as punch with these sightings in Moremi, but my pleasure just about hit overload the morning we found a whole pack of wild dogs with ten puppies in Khwai, romping and chasing and wrestling and running hog-wild (yes, even though they're dogs, haha).  

And then it did just go off the charts when the dogs led us to the leopardess! That was one glorious safari morning. 

In light of all this mega excitement, we nearly ditched the activity that had been planned for late morning. It was an extreme change of pace, but I'm glad we did not miss it. We boarded some little dugout canoes, a traditional type of transport in the Okavango region called a mokoro or makoro -- two tourists and a guide per canoe -- and very lazily navigated through a water channel densely populated with water lilies.

Our guide stopped several times to point out the smaller members of the local animal kingdom and minute details about the flora and landscape, which I would never ever have seen without his guidance, and I'm thankful for it. No, this little frog isn't quite as enchanting as a leopard, but it's pretty cool -- tiny thing clinging to a tube of grass. See Erik's hand for scale (he took the pic). 

And this alone was worth the mokoro trip for me: a pair of African jacana eggs. They are super tiny eggs, absolutely exquisite. They look like they're hand-painted as a piece of art, or to me they look like some kind of dense, polished rock, like they make bowls and plates out of at the rock shop in my town. How on earth the guides ever found these eggs is beyond me, but it certainly makes me respect the knowledge of the local people who pay such close attention to their surroundings. 

And what comes out of these tiny eggs? A tiny jacana bird! Again, Erik's hand provides some scale for this little creature hiding in the marsh grasses. Do you notice those giant feet coming out from underneath the bird, looking almost like giant spider legs, grasping the dead reed? Those crazy things belong to that itty bitty bird! So these birds have some funny nicknames such as "Jesus bird" and "lily trotter" because of their amazing ability to walk on the flimsiest rafts of marsh weeds and lily pads (which can look like they're walking on water), and it's due to those feet that function, rather like snowshoes do on snow, to spread their weight. The second photo below is an adult jacana, I took that pic in the marshes in Moremi.   

On the way back to camp, we found the dog pack again, cached out in the shade of a small grove of trees, the little ones dozing fitfully in a giant puppy pile. But there's always one who just can't sleep! 

Then we got up the next morning and found them again! We tried to keep track of them running through the bushes, careening around on the maze of dirt paths our guide knew so well, as we thought they were chasing down an impala. But it proved impossible. I confess I'm disappointed in 90% of the photos I snapped of the African wild dogs in Khwai, but I'm 100% thrilled with having watched them with my own fleshy eyeballs. 

Another cool thing I watched was this little drama between a saddle billed stork and a fish eagle. The eagle kept wanting to land and the stork was simply not having it. If the eagle simply wanted to hang out on the ground, I suppose he could have gone elsewhere, to a section that was not patrolled by a stork, so maybe in fact he was somehow taunting the stork who kept snapping back at him. 

Here's a more composed saddle billed stork calmly wading through the water. I must say I don't tire of these birds either.

Here's our Red Siren friend, the groundbill, again, and though he's walking in a different colored landscape than in Moremi, he has not grown any more cautious with his flashy wattle. 

A duck fond of red, wading in the marshy waters.

Our original itinerary was to spend three nights in each of four parks. But there were troubles with the staff truck (which had to carry all of our tents and food and wonderful staff), so we stayed over a fourth night in Khwai. I didn't feel sad about this because I had been very much enjoying this game reserve, but then when we got to spend the extra afternoon with the lion family, whose story I gave you in "Family Tale in the Okavango Delta," I thanked whatever gnome tinkered with the truck and kept us here, allowing us this precious gift. I'd never before simply hung out with one particular group of animals for several hours, watching their day unfold in the freedom of their wilderness. It was so special, particularly when that group of animals included lion cubs!!!! I had really been hoping to see some young lions. Please read about the events of their afternoon HERE, and please enjoy some more time with the darling cubs below. 

Mom and cub simultaneous tongue action! For a gal who loves it when she captures an animal with its tongue out, this was the jackpot!  

Now check out how huge mom's tongue is as she licks her affectionate cub's face -- practically as big as its whole face. And then look how cute the cub's little tongue is giving its mum a sweet lick on her nose. 

We saw plenty of adult male lions, too. And I can never see too many of these magnificent animals with their brilliant manes and regal demeanors. This guy, though, looks to me like he's feeling melancholy or wistful. I wanna go hug him and ask him what's up. Here he's looking more like his old lion self ... he has recovered his thoughts to whatever lions normally think of in the early morning. Look at the ear of the next fellow, though, how notched it is -- he's clearly had a few good tussles in his life. 

For lots more lions, read about our time in Chobe National Park, which was particularly rich with elephant and lion encounters. 

But back to baby animals ..... baboon youngsters are some of the most manic and entertaining creatures to watch when they rumble with each other. These little guys were getting on their kung fu moves!

Very young baboons have it pretty easy, leisurely riding along on mom's back or clinging to her underside as she walks. Do you notice what challenge this baby's mom has overcome? Makes you wonder if she was born that way or suffered an injury later in life. 

I love this scene of a male kudu and his spectacular horns strolling through the marsh, indifferent to the baboons all around him. It's a scene peaceful and calm, yet dynamic at the same time, similar to one I posted from Moremi with the waterbuck and baboons. The only thing that would have made it better is if one of those baboons had jumped on the kudu's back.  

My two favorite African antelope species: A male kudu, mid-munch; and a shaggy female waterbuck.

Is a safari post complete without a picture of a giraffe? I'm not sure, but just to be safe, here's a super little baby, not even as tall as the branches of an acacia tree.  

Evening descends in the Khwai Concessions, and it actually seems to cool off a tad. Maybe because of being surrounded by the water. That special golden light of evening highlights a spray of water from a hippo, the texture of the underside of an elephant's amazing trunk, a bird's wings, my brown hair, and all the sweet moments of the day parading through my memory as we prepare to head back to camp and enjoy an evening glass (or three) of wine, the nightly appetizer of popcorn (hurray!), and dinner by gas lantern before lying down in my tent in the Botswana bush, ready to hear the sounds of night and imagine the nocturnal world around me.  

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