We had some time after lunch to relax. We watched an elegant green snake slithering around the roof of the eating hall. Brian tried to convince me that this was a green mamba (a highly poisonous snake), but looking this up afterwards we found out that green mambas have no markings at all.
 not a green mamba |
 snoozing |
 dwarf mongoose |
Our afternoon game drive started with hartebeest and vervet monkeys and hyraxes and a good range of birds. (Notable birds included a black-chested snake eagle, red-necked buffalo weaver, black-bellied bustard, and orange river francolin.)
 Shelley's francolin |
 red-necked spurfowl |
 black-headed heron |
Just before 6pm we had five or ten minutes with some really nice light for photography. There weren't any animals around, but Camilla and I got Muba to stop the vehicle and went all out photographing trees.
 acacia trees |
 a random tree stump |
 acacia tree |
Not long afterwards we saw our third leopard of the day. This was the best placed of the three for visibility, and it was cleaning itself rather than just lying there, but the light was going now and I ended up at ISO 800, trying to keep the camera stable with a shutter speed of 1/200s at at the equivalent of 565mm...
 leopard - 283mm, f/4.9, 1/200s, ISO 800 |
 Serengeti sunset |
There was a nice sunset. For dinner we had a traditional machalari stew from the Kilimanjaro region, involving plaintain bananas, beef, and pepper. There were buffalo wandering around in the night — Brian saw one — and lions could be heard, but I slept well and missed it all.
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