• Tag Archives Okavango Delta
  • delta

  • Termites

    The termite mounds in Africa are even bigger than the ones in Australia.

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    This mound is about 80 years old and was there before the trees. The birds like to perch on the top of termite mounds and deposit seeds, which roll down to the bottom, forming a ring of trees around the mound in an otherwise empty plain.

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    The termites also seem to be responsible for these strange structures.

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    They seem to be dirt encased around old branches, which have since rotted away leaving these fragile towers.

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  • Ant Lion

    This is an ant lion. His digging parts are on the other end, so that he always has his jaws sticking upward ready to eat.

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    He digs cone shaped holes in the sand to trap ants. Then when they fall in he kicks sand out at them so that they can’t escape and fall down to the bottom of the cone where he is waiting. Then he uses those big jaws to suck all the guts out, leaving only the shell.

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  • Delta Birds

    There were more fish eagles in the delta.

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    They circled very high searching for fish.

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    This is a carmine bee-eater. They are very brightly coloured.

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    There were tons of other birds in the delta, but most of them didn’t sit still so we could take a picture.

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  • Okavango Delta

    We spend 3 days in the Okavango Delta.

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    To get there we sat in shallow boats which our local guides pushed through the water by pushing the ground with long poles.

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    We scared away huge flocks of birds.

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    They were flying around all over the place.

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    The boats travelled through hippo paths through the reeds.

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    Fortunately the hippos only really use them at night.

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    The paths are not very wide or very straight.

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    Where there are no reeds there are lilypads.

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    The lilypads make pretty flowers.

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    Really big pretty flowers.

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    We got to go for a sunset cruise.

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    It was very pretty.

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