29 April - 1 May 2019: Katima Mulilo

I arrived at the Caprivi Houseboat Safari Lodge in high hopes of ticking the Yellow-throated Leavelove while having sundowners on the wooden deck overlooking the Zambezi River. The sundowners and a beautiful sunset over the Zambezi were the only part of this equation that was realised. The Leaveloves were apparently hanging out at a private house upstream of the lodge.

Little Bee-eaters, Katima

Curt Sagell, local owner and bird guide, showed me around the next morning. We again dipped on the Leaveloves, but found a beautiful Lizard Buzzard in the vicinity. Curt called up a family of three Racket-tailed Rollers on the main road, thus finding me a new Southern African lifer. I was so pleased that I spontaneously broke out into the Mandela shuffle, then had another good look and took a few photos. It took thirty years of twitching to nail down the Racket-tail. Just for good measure I danced another, statelier, Mandela shuffle. Curt kept an admirable poker-face during all these proceedings.

Racket-tailed Roller, Katima

We then visited numerous pans in the vicinity, finding a White-backed Duck for the year list. At one of the pans we came across a very strange looking, brown dove, with none of the usual markings to indicate its identity. Curt contacted Trevor Hardaker for some help, who then identified it as a juvenile Namaqua Dove, So we live and learn… That evening we went searching for African Finfoot and Pel’s Fishing Owl on the Zambezi, dodging hippos in the dark. We dipped. And dipped again.

African Wood Owl, Katima

Just after sunrise I was looking for the Leaveloves at their upstream hangout. Rizelle, who used to work at the lodge, took pity on me and found them in the garden of a private home. Another lifer; another Mandela shuffle. Life is good!