A leisurely morning by the pool and another 50 lengths just to keep fit. At 1400 we met Charles Brightman a local naturalist and guide who we had booked to take us for a walk in the Zambezi national park and to help us identify some of the bird life. I first needed to know the identity of the black and white hornbills in the hotel grounds - he told me they were trumpeter hornbills.....which made sense when you heard them!
As we headed off we saw a tawny eagle patrolling by the main road, along with lesser striped swallows and laughing doves.
We went to park via the back of the crocodile farm (whose crocodiles are destined to be fashionable handbags and belts) as their waste outlets are a magnet for lots of birds; we saw maribou storks, hooded vultures, sacred ibis, 3 banded plover, and blacksmith plovers surrounding and paddling in a muddy pool. We then set of to the park, paid our $15 entrance fees and saw little bee eater , white fronted bee eater, cordon bleus, fire finch, forked tailed drongo, yellow breasted finches, spotted back bulbul, and the more common black headed bulbul, purple roller, lilac breasted roller, senegal coucal, grey hornbill, red hornbill, bradfields hornbill, quelia, turtle doves, emerald spotted doves, dark chanting goshawk, brown headed kingfisher, pied kingfisher, grey heron, green striped heron,and a white backed vulture nesting in a baobab tree. Animal life included - a crocodile, buffalo, hippo, impala, warthogs common waterbuck and a fitting finale of baboons and a family of elephants by a waterhole as we left the park. The insect life included a red locust and an army of matebele ants off in search of their next meal of termites.
When we returned we freshened up and had dinner on the Stanley Terrace - we started with the best soup we have ever tasted courgette, spinach and brie......and watched the evening light over the falls.