Today we were up at 3.30am for the early morning bat experience - a quick coffee and biscuit then we were off by 4.15am to the BBC hide again.
John stayed on the first level and had a very nice unfettered experience on his own. I made it to the top - we felt the morning experience was different to the evening one and unusually more bats seemed to be coming back than went out!! As the sun was waking up we could get pictures which clearly showed they were straw coloured bats.
They seemed to take a long time to settle but having had our fill we left with our guide at 0620am to go on a walk and search for the Sitatunga.
We found a female slowly munching breakfast on the edge of the marsh. We were quiet and got quite close. A lovely antelope ( today's photo). I now wanted to see a male - clearly my luck was in as when we got back to the lodge two males were on the marsh surrounding the lake.
On our way back to camp we had a special siting of a side striped jackal running across some open ground.
After breakfast, and so the grass didn't grow under our feet, we headed off to walk around the lake with Jacob. It was great to see the little things including water berries - one of the fruits the bats eat - they suck out the juice, so we found disorders pips and skins on the ground that they had spat out.
In the evening we went to the Western hide but not up it, that's tomorrow as it only takes three, instead we had a grand stand viewing sitting in camping chairs for probably the most impressive exodus we have seen. As a prelude we saw hundreds of swallows catching insects in the upper atmosphere - in comparison to the bats they were small dots.The wind changed direction just as the bats took off and they headed over us making the sky black with bats - just as John had visioned it. Tonight was an amazing spectacle - the best yet - and to top it all the backdrop was a brilliant orange and red sunset!