11

You remember my talking about the soil at Kanga, my first camp? You were probably rather bored, thinking "Jonathan, stop the geology lesson. We are here to see pictures of animals". Until this trip I had thought nothing about soil types. When I was being picked up from the airstrip, on my way to Somalisa, I found out that Hwange National Park is in a completely different geological area from Mana Pools, where my first camp had been. Not only is it higher (about 3500' or 1000 m above sea level) which makes it cooler; but it is also composed of sand which has, over many thousands of years, been blown from the Kalahari desert, way to the southwest. Read carefully: one of the properties of sand is that while it heats up quickly, it also loses heat quickly. How quickly? Well, about an hour before sunset, it suddenly feels much cooler, much more pleasant than the high 80s F (high 20s C) that it had been during the day. I was prepared for this, and after our sundowners I had another layer of clothing to put on for our drive back to camp. But I was not prepared for how cold it was in the morning: just above freezing. Yes, really around 34° F (1° C); and June would have been colder still! Warm coats, gloves and hot-water bottles for our laps in the Land Cruisers were all necessary, as we set off for our morning game drive. Wind chill at that temperature in an open vehicle at 7am is Not Funny. But then, at about 9 o'clock, it starts to warm up. By noon you have peeled off all your layers, and are definitely sweating. Suddenly, knowledge about the effects of soil type takes on a new importance.

The best photo that I could find of the skittish steenbock

Some more vultures, both white-headed and white-backed

An owl

Eland. I know that many of these antelope look alike when you glance at photos, but they aren't when you see them in their natural habitat

The rear end of an African wild cat (the only time that I have seen one). It's not very interesting, but there we are

The wildebeest, also known as the gnu

And here is another, with a fast-moving baboon in front of it. The difficulty of taking photos at dusk!

And here is a YouTube link to a gnu of a different kind

Another picture of my favourite bird, just because I love it and it's my website!