First morning in Moremi and it is significantly warmer than Savuti, we almost forego wearing beanies and down jackets but err on the side of being too warm. Derek has been suffering from camera lens envy since he is still shooting on a light weight 300mm lens from 2012 and everyone else has big honker metal Canon professional grade 400mm with zoom adapters that take them to like 550mm. Angela graciously offers to let him try her lens for the morning and to his surprise it actually fits on the slim frame Canon SL3 body. Auto focus doesn’t seem to be compatible, so Derek goes “full manual” today trying out controlling all the settings including focus by hand. Its actually quite fun and does result in a lot more control. The main challenge is remembering to dial in your ISO when moving targets.

First up we see a large male lion, first lounging in the sun, then getting up and starting his slow walk… somewhere. Shortly there after we pull up on four painted dogs that are on a fresh impala kill. There are a few trucks there already and Lasty spots a hyena close by that is hoping to steal the kill. Lasty decides to take us to see the hyena first which is a great call since there isn’t anyone else there yet. We get the best views and photos of a hyena to date. Very unusual in our experience for them to not immediately run away when the truck gets close.

After hyena close-ups and watching the dogs chew up the impala bones for a bit (they look just like our dogs with their evening chewies) we followed the hyena for a while as he’d decided to bug out. Most of the rest of the morning was just slowly driving about enjoying the scenery. The Okavango delta is really one of the most beautiful landscapes in the world in our opinion. The combination of trees, red and yellow grass, white sand, watery marshes and lagoons, speckled with antelope, giraffes, elephants, and zebras, what is not to like!

Bird highlights of the morning included: red hornbill, gray hornbill, wattled crane, and four ground hornbills that have a very pre-historic look. Coffee overlooking a lagoon filled with hippos, then spotting some warthogs running through some water was a novel scene.

In the afternoon we mix it up by going on a boat ride on the lagoon. The water is glassy and surrounded by beautiful reeds, papyrus, and elephant grass. The trees on horizon cast picturesque reflections on the water doubling the beauty. We see two different elephants, both older males. This is the elephant retirement home where the big old elephants whose teeth are too warn down to eat bark anymore come to eat the soft reeds and lilies careful to wash off the silt before putting in their mouths to preserve what little teeth they have left.

Bird sightings included: fish eagle, African darter, many jacanas, coppery-tailed coucal, African openbill, African stonechat

Gin and tonic sundowners on the lagoon with an elephant strolling across makes for a very memorable occasion.

Dinner tonight has been moved down to “the garden”, which is large lawn space below the raised lodge immediately adjacent to the fire pit. It is very nicely done with lots of oil lamps along with the roaring fire. Another fantastic day in paradise.