After our normal early trek to the shower block and breakfast we had our last morning birding in Ankasa. We stopped at the National Parks display area and Ken showed us two aerial photographs of the park taken in 1984, when it was surrounded by Forest and in 2007 when it was an isolated pocket - they have now reinforced its borders to prevent any encroachment - it was originally preserved to secure the water supply and that need is probably greater now than ever before.
Lessons learnt, we were back at camp by 1030, packed and eating an early lunch by 1100 am before our longish drive to Shama and our overnight stop in a guest house - warm water and a bed for a change!
Enroute we stopped at several pools and mangrove areas looking for wildlife our spotting highlights included pigmy geese, hartlaubs ducks and the white browed forest flycatcher. We arrived at the guest house mid to late afternoon and refreshed ourselves once the generator was on and the fan was spinning around - we had arrived during a power cut so the generator was needed for everything to work. However hot showers were out because we could hear the generator strain and stutter when we put the shower on so decided on the safer option of cold showers and ensuring the fan stayed on! We rested until 1630 when we headed off for Nsutu Forest to see if we could spot night jars and owls. The roads were very potholed so the journey took 90 minutes or so. As it went dark we heard night jars but didn't see them; were thwarted by the eagle owls who gave us a miss but welcomed by a wood owl who kept calling and we found sitting on a tree as we were leaving, a departure which John, tired and hungry as we had had no food since 11 am, rightly insisted that one more try to see an Eagle Owl was one too many. Anyway we had told the guest house that we would be back by 20-20.30 and it was now 1930 with an almost 90 minute journey ahead of us!
Finally back at the guest house just after 20.40 we had dinner - chips, hot beans and veggies for me even though I had a piece of fish, minus head, on my plate but I couldn't face more fish!
( today's photo is daily life opposite our guest house!)
Another long day we were glad to get into our very large double bed and sleep until alarm time.