Today, we saw many of the same animals and birds on our morning and evening game drives, as well as some new arrivals to the party such as cattle egrets on the shoulders of hippos and numerous other birds such as the crested crane strutting his stuff.  Actually, we were probably paying more attention to the birds now because we had already seen so many of the mega-fauna already.  But the day’s highlights were a leopard moving about in a tree, a lioness nursing three cubs along the bank of a stream and a herd of elephants taking a bath (mostly rolling around in the mud) in a pool, with a baby having a very hard time getting out of the mud.  We also have a great video on this day of dung beetles doing what they do best, rolling a larger and larger ball of dung down a path.

We had one last night around the campfire, with the evening’s entertainment being a song-and-dance performance by our camp staff before we ate what was described as an “African meal”, and headed to our tents, watching carefully for unfriendlies.  Many in our group have by now encountered a small black snake on the path to our tents, which tends to make us all very watchful.  We were the first, finding one on the little plastic patio outside our front door a couple of days ago, but now nearly everyone has seen them.  Makes you wonder what else (perhaps mama snake) is off in that tall grass…