And finally…we’re at the end of the Botswana trip photos. I dunno what I’ll be able to post next but he’s got a few photos on his memory card so hopefully he might do them soon. He’s thinking about heading up to the Venice Rookery in the next week or so to catch the tail end of the breeding season up there…but with all that’s going on with life he’s not sure it will work. He’s going to negotiate with Connie and see if (a) she wants to go with him and (b) what day might work. It won’t be this week…she’s in the midst of Civil War Cantata stress as I’ll discuss in a bit.

Since my last post…we’ve done pretty much not much. They finished filing their tax return and submitted it…and all that’s left is to figure out how much to pay in estimated taxes for the dividends and capital gains from their portfolio with Cassaday and Company…they’ve been managing their assets for going on 2 decades now. They always pay estimated taxes since they have no idea how much they’ll make from the investment accounts and it’s always a guessing game with Neil trying to figure it out. And it will get even worse next year in 2027 since they’ll be at the age where they’ll start having to take Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) from their IRAs but at least Cassaday can do withholding for federal taxes on those. They can reduce the RMDs by making Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCDs) from their IRAs and that’s their current plan.

Connie’s having a really hard week…with Mastersingers rehearsals every night this week except Thursday. They’re preparing a world premier piece…it turns out that the director of the Mastersingers great grandfather (or maybe great-great, I dunno) fought in the Civil War and kept a diary. Matt (the director) found this diary recently and commissioned a choral piece using the words from the diary from a well known (well, well known at least in the choral world anyway) composer. They’ve been rehearsing it the last couple of months and the composer is in town this week to oversee the rehearsals and make changes based on what he’s heard. From what he’s told the chorus…he’s plenty happy with their professionalism and singing ability. They’ll be doing the world premier Saturday and Neil will attend and there is a second performance on Sunday at a different venue. Neil’s heard it from her practicing and from attending the rehearsals while her car was in the shop for the rear hatch leak and it’s a pretty decent piece…much better than most contemporary pieces which tend to be atonal and not really sound like music to either him or her. There are a couple of soloists (tenor and a mezzo soprano) along with the chorus and orchestra. I’ll let you know how it sounds on Saturday in my next post.

They’ve got a Fort Myers Community Concert tomorrow though…it’s a performance by Brandon Marsalis’s group…he’s the younger brother of Wynton who is one of the better trumpet soloist these days…although Winton has largely quit doing classical music in favor of jazz. The family is from New Orleans which explains the jazz influence and both he and his two younger brothers are in the music performance biz. 

Neil had to break down and buy new hearing aids after 9 years…one of his broke and isn’t repairable. The good news is that the firmware is much better now so he’ll be able to hear better…the bad news as I reported last time is they cost a lot. No worries though…it’s all under control. He will pick up the new ones Friday evening which he’s happy about as he has been hard to heard things with only one working the past week orson.

OK, let’s get on to the final images from Botswana and then the wrap-up of his trip and some thought on African safaris.

African Darter…pretty much the same bird as the anhinga we have here in the US.

Here’s a different individual doing a takeoff from the river. They’re colloquially known both in African and the US as snakebirds as they swim with just their head and neck out of the water. They eat fish which they dive for…but their feathers are not waterproof which means takeoff is somewhat difficult for them. They’re fairly heavy (2.5-3.5 pounds) birds for their size and as a result they do a sort of running takeoff to get airborne…jumping out of the water then keeping putting their feet down and pushing off repeatedly until they get enough airspeed to fly. This sequence is about 3 seconds or so in length.

And finally fully airborne…it will go sit on a tree somewhere with its wings spread to let the wind and sun dry them out.

A different individual

Small crocodile…this one is about a foot and a half long so is probably 2 years old.

Malachite Kingfisher…even at 1/4000 o a second shutter speed there’s still some motion blur in the wings. Not as bas as a hummingbird but still a pretty fast critter. Precapture with his Nikon Z8 gave him this sequence…he would have never gotten the launch without it.

Little Egret…or Snowy Egret as it is named in the US. Wading birds have several different feeding techniques. Great Egrets and Great Blue Herons stand still and then stab down to grab prey when it comes near. Little Egrets and Snowy Egrets use their golden feet and walk slowly along shuffling their feet to scare the prey into moving then stab down to grab it. Then there is the technique used by Reddish Egrets and similar who spread their wings to provide shade and then the prey swims into the shade and becomes lunch.

Cormorant

Black Winged Stilt

Black Skimmer

Funeral procession…Namibian style

With that…their short morning boat ride came to an end and they went back to the houseboat to gather their luggage before heading off.

Next up…a trip through Namibian immigration exit and then Botswana immigration entering. They went in their boat over to the Namibian side and found this buoy to mark the location. Like the folks in Alaska…apparently Africans never throw anything away either…they basically painted an empty propane container and used it for a buoy…Neil wondered what the anchor for it was.

After doing the double immigration thing they moored again on the south side of the Chobe river and headed back to the Pangolin Lodge for lunch…after which the group all said their ‘until next times’ and 4 of the six of them headed off toe the airport for the return flight in the early afternoon to Johannesburg. The remaining two went a different direction…one back to Victoria Falls and the other to another safari trip in Zambia. On arrival back at Johannesburg there was yet another immigration thing to enter South Africa and then the group of 4 broke up heading to various destinations

For Neil…he left the airport and walked across the street to the IHG Hotel again. Checked in and had a nice kudu steak dinner and hit the sack early to catch up on sleep after a long hot shower. Early the next morning it was the start of another long travel day for him. He checked out, walked back to the airport and then basically killed time waiting on his 2200 departing flight…but it was at least business class so after an afternoon killing time in the airport he checked in and went to the lounge for some food. His overnight flight was from Johannesburg to Amsterdam…then a hour and a half layover before boarding his flight to Atlanta. That one got in a bit late due to some thunderstorms but he made his connection to Fort Myers with an hour to spare before finally arriving back home about 2300. Connie picked him up…but she was pretty much a nervous wreck when they met up as she got caught in a tropical downpour on the freeway on the way to the airport…she was down to 30 mph it was raining so hard. He drove home since she was done and then they unleaded the car and hit the sack…leaving unpacking for the next day. They had one day off before a scheduled dental appointment and then her previously scheduled breast cancer surgery…they were lucking able to schedule that so it didn’t interfere with the trip.

So…now that he’s been to Africa twice…Serengeti in Tanzania and to Botswana…I asked him if he was going to back and if so where and why. He’s hem-ing and haw-ing about it be cause they’re really two completely different sort of environments. Both trips were outstanding…but he thinks if he were to do it again he would do Tanzania…primarily because of the 11 days in Botswana 7 or 8 of them were boat rides which mean you need to stay on the river and can only see critters that are near the river. On the land portion you’re in much more wooded areas as opposed to the Serengeti where you can literally see for miles. Since it’s all on land…while the vehicles mostly follow previously used paths that are sorta like roads…it’s easy for the driver to go off-road and get to where the critters are…that’s how they got most of the lion shots from his previous trip and they would not have gotten the caracal at all without the ability to go off-road. On the other hand…the hippo shots were much better from the boat on the river as opposed to being up on the bank over the herd…and they also got leopards in Botswana but that’s really luck of the draw as Serengeti has them as well. 

He’s glad he went to Botswana and isn’t sure whether the cost of another trip to the continent is worth it…but thinks Serengeti would be his choice next time. While they did get some good shots from the boat…the inability to leave the river definitely made 4 legged creatures harder to find. On the other hand…the kingfisher shots would not have happened in Serengeti since they stay by the rivers…so which one he would recommend really depends on what one wants to see. For most people…cats and herd animals are what they go to Africa for and those were overall better in Serengeti.

I’ve just got a few interesting things found on the net…but his is already pretty long so I’ll keep them for next time.

Cyas.