Do the Little Things

I am a conservationist. I am an animal advocate. I am an environmentalist.

I will not apologize for the way I feel, the way I believe, or the way I act. I will continue to write about and post about these issues. I will continue to pick up trash in my neighborhood, trash tossed from car windows by people too lazy to properly dispose of their cans and bottles. I will continue to use reusable grocery bags, eschewing the single-use grocery bags handed out by the billions in this country every year. I will continue to take short showers. I will not own a gas-guzzling car. I will recycle everything I can. I will reuse plastic bread bags and other plastic bags that cannot be recycled. Those bags can be used to pick up dog poop from my yard, or to line small trash cans. 

I will continue to minimize my consumption of animal products. I switched from cow's milk to almond or cashew milk a few years ago. I haven't eaten pork for many years, and I won't eat lamb, veal, wild game or any endangered kind of fish. I enjoy vegetarian sausage and plant-based burgers. Yes, I do still eat cheese (which I love) and yogurt. I am a work in progress.

I will continue to support organizations working to preserve wild areas, and to protect animals such as wolves, bears, lions and elephants. I will continue to oppose trophy hunting or any form of animal killing for fun. I will continue to oppose coyote killing contests, and I will support all efforts to make such spectacles illegal. I will continue to oppose the wearing of fur, whether the fur comes from wild or 'farmed' animals. I try to avoid buying food that contains palm oil, although that blood-tainted oil seems to be everywhere.

I will continue to boycott businesses and states that engage in or encourage animal cruelty. I recently canceled plans to visit Namibia next year after that country sold the rights to murder a well-known bull elephant to a trophy hunter. I stopped visiting Yellowstone National Park, my favorite place in the US to visit, until the states of Montana and Wyoming stop the slaughter of wolves to placate the cattle industry. Do my boycotts change anything? Do they have an impact? On their own, probably not. But if enough people join the boycott, we may have an impact.

All these things I do are easily accomplished. It takes no effort to pick up and dispose of a can or bottle thrown from a car window. It takes no effort to throw paper into a paper bag for recycling. It takes no time to have my groceries packed into reusable bags. If enough people do little things, the impact can be huge. 

There are many people who do so much more than I do. Some have given up their cars, while others follow a vegan lifestyle. I do what I can. As I get older, I find it easier to give up some of the things I used to love, for the greater good. As I move farther into the sunset of my life, I worry more about my impact on this planet and the beings -- plant and animal -- that share the world with me.

Please join me and help save the only planet at this point able to sustain life. If we all do the little things, we can make a big impact.

Why I Love to Write

What is it about writing that I so enjoy?

I have known I have talent as a writer since middle school, when a teacher invited me to join the school newspaper. I later worked as a public affairs and communications specialist for a large humane society and for a well-known federal agency. I'm not creative enough to be a fiction writer, but I do like to write about things I know, things I feel, and things I have experienced. 

• I love the emotional release (venting) I get from writing about things that upset me (such as the current state of politics in the United States). 
• I write to express my opinion about something, or to educate people about the ongoing slaughter of elephants and wolves. 
• I also enjoy the craftsmanship of writing. I like to revisit a sentence or paragraph or an entire piece of work and search until I find just the right word, or rearrange paragraphs until they make more sense. 
• As an introvert, writing allows me to express myself while remaining mostly anonymous and avoiding the uncomfortable feeling of interacting with a lot of people I don't know. 
• I get a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment when I finish writing something. And if I'm not happy with it, I can always let it sit for a while and then revisit it with fresh eyes. 
• Writing can help me articulate and organize my thoughts. 
• Writing can help me process grief. 
• Sometimes I write just to release emotions, never intending to publish or share what I wrote. 
• Writing allows me to share with others some of my wonderful travel experiences.
• Writing helps me challenge myself to improve my skill as a writer. After all, the best way to become a better writer is to ... write!
• My reward for writing comes from inside me. I don't get paid to write. I have had a few articles published in a local newspaper and in the newsletters of a few non-profit organizations. I have won awards from the Dog Writers Association of America. But my biggest reward comes from knowing that I have produced a well-written article or blog post.
• Writing produces, for me, the joy of creating something.  The subject matter may not be -- and often isn't -- unique. But my perspective, my story, is uniquely mine.
• Writing lets me indulge my creative side, just as photography does. I enjoy photography more, but for me, the two creative processes go hand in hand.
• Sometimes, I just feel a need to write something.
• I am a writer. I don't get paid for my work, and not a lot of people read what I write. But I am a writer. I startled myself a few years ago when somebody asked me what I do, and I replied "I am a writer." I am a writer because I write, and because I consider myself a writer.

So this is why I write. If you enjoy reading my blog, please let me know what you like, and don't like, about it. And I would love to have you sign up as a follower. You won't be bombarded with e-mails, but you will be notified whenever a new blog post is available. Your e-mail address won't be shared or sold to anybody.

Thanks for reading!

Loving the Sunshine

I live in the high desert, at an elevation of about 5,300 feet, in America's southwest.

I love the low humidity, the clean air and the amazing blue sky. I love the views of the mountains, and the stunning sunrises. And I really love the 300 days of sunshine we get every year.

But I wouldn't want to live here without the convenience of air conditioning, and I can't imagine how difficult life must have been for those who inhabited this area way back when. It's hot. It's dry. It's beautiful. It's a high elevation desert.

I so appreciate living in a cool house. But there is something wonderful about walking out of the cool and into the heat and sunshine. The sun on my bare arms and legs fills me with a feeling of not just warmth, but with a sense of well-being. 

There is an actual physiological reason for this feeling of well-being. Exposure to sunlight is believed to increase the brain’s release of the  hormone serotonin, which is associated with boosting mood and creating a sense of calm. Light therapy, or exposure to artificial sunlight, is sometimes used to combat depression in people who live in areas with shorter periods of sunshine (such as in the far north).

I remember many years ago, when I was a college student, lying outside on a beach towel, soaking up the sun. I used baby oil and dark tanning lotion to give myself a "dark, tropical tan." And I do get quite tan, despite my (formerly) blonde hair and blue eyes. I got burned a few times, but not as often as I would have expected. These days, if I will be outside for more than a few minutes, I put on sunscreen. I wear a wide-brimmed hat. I am not without sunglasses when I'm outdoors. I had one small pre-cancerous spot removed from my right hand. As wonderful as the sunshine is, it also carries serious dangers.

In addition to the feeling of warmth from the sun, I also must have sunlight in order to be happy. One of the reasons I love my current house is all the light it allows inside. There are lots of large windows, and five skylights. Every car I buy must have a sun roof. If it doesn't already have one, I pay to have one installed.

Grey, cloudy days make me depressed. The occasional rainy day provides a nice break from the brilliant sunshine, and I do enjoy that change in the weather. Rain is always welcome. But there is no way I could live in Seattle, Portland or Chicago (where I grew up) with their long stretches of dreary weather.

Sometime the best antidepressants aren't medications, but Mother Nature, being outdoors, and lots of sunshine.

Independence Day 2019

I love my country. I am patriotic. I stand for the national anthem. I believe that all people should be treated fairly. I served my country for more than a quarter century as a federal employee. I vote. I stand for the national anthem.

I am not afraid of people from other countries, or with different religious beliefs. I do not fear immigrants, After all, those who founded America were immigrants. They were dissenters. Some, if not all, were considered troublemakers and traitors. Sometimes people have to be troublemakers to effect real change. Where would be be if our forefathers hadn't had the courage to rock the boat, to put their lives and their fortunes on the line for the greater good?

But I'm not a zealot. I don't own a gun. I don't tell people who have concerns about the direction this country has taken to "move to Russia" or "get the hell out." I believe that people can love their country, but still disagree with the decisions its elected officials make. People can love their country and still become activists to try and change things they believe need to be changed. Indeed, working to make a great country even better through peaceful activism is as it should be.

I believe the current situation on this country's southern border is a disaster. We cannot and we should not be expected to allow hundreds of thousands of immigrants to enter the country every month without some sort of screening. There have to be controls in place. There must be a mechanism for screening people. But keeping people, particularly children who have been taken from their parents, locked in cages is morally wrong. Making them sleep on a concrete floor, depriving them of showers and toothbrushes and other basic hygiene supplies, is morally wrong. The entire immigration system is woefully broken.

While Congress and the president squabble over funding to help provide basic care (claiming the US can't afford to provide such things as soap and toothpaste), people are suffering. Some have died while in US custody. All the while, a country that allegedly can't afford to care for its immigrants apparently can afford to spend hundreds of millions of dollars so the president can play golf at one of his resorts every weekend. It can afford to send his daughter to a meeting of heads of state in Japan so she can pretend to be the secretary of state. It can afford to put on a massive parade to honor the narcissistic president as he campaigns for reelection, under the guise of honoring America's Independence Day.

This isn't patriotism. This is ripping off the American taxpayers who foot the bill for this homage to a president who will do anything for attention. This is politicizing our military. This is stealing money from the woefully underfunded National Park Service to help pay for this salute to a five-time draft dodger, a salute instigated by the draft dodger himself.

This year, more than ever, let us celebrate our country. Let us not forget the principles upon which it was founded: Justice for all. Equality. Equal rights. The pursuit of happiness. The poor should have the same rights as the wealthy. Women should have the same rights as men. Those who practice a religion different from Christianity should have the same rights to worship as do Christians. Gays should have the same rights as do straight people. Those with dark skin or from another country should have the same basic rights as do those with 'white' skin.

Regardless of our financial status, regardless of of our political leanings, regardless of our country of original, regardless of the color of our skin, we all are entitled to the same basic human rights. Giving rights to one group of people doesn't take rights away from others. But now, it seems, the wealthy, the political conservatives and the evangelicals are trying to take rights away from those who are different. This is not America. This is the result of a narcissistic, corrupt, morally bankrupt president and his followers.

As we celebrate the founding of the mightiest nation on earth, let us not forget the principles upon which this country was founded. We are better than this, America. Let us not forget.

Botswana Safari: Part II

Recently I got to revisit the southeast African country of Botswana, and it is not at all as it was when I was there 5 years ago. 

Many of the areas where we drove should have been under water. We got stuck in the sand once, and twice had to go off road to get around the deeply rutted sandy road. Whereas during my previous visit we climbed into our mokoros (dugout canoes) to explore the delta by boat from the back of our lodge, this year's outings required a 15 to 20 minute drive to the water.

This wasn't the best African safari I have experienced, but it was wonderful nonetheless. I got to spend time with three friends from the United Kingdom. And I experienced some amazing things. 

• Getting to see not one, but two, aardwolves was a special treat. This was my 7th safari in southern Africa, and the only time I have seen an aardwolf. This photo shows an aardwolf pup peering out of its den.
  
  
• On our final game drive the morning of our departure, we saw a newborn giraffe with its mother. This giraffe was so young that its umbilicus was still attached. 
• A male lion was just a few feet from our vehicle when it started to roar. What an experience that was!
• For the first time, I saw sable antelope. Our first sighting was of a single antelope, but later in the trip, we saw numerous members of this rare species.
• Our last camp, known as Kwando Lagoon, was situated on the Kwando river, which was full of hippos. They grunted, groaned and snorted all night. Some nights I could hear a hippo just outside our tent pulling up vegetation to munch on.
• We had stopped along a river to watch a group of elephants drinking and spraying themselves with mud, when one of them, a bull, started walking toward our vehicle with great determination. It never charged us, but it gave every impression that it wasn't happy with our presence. Unhappy elephants have a particular gait that shows their agitation. Our guide quickly started the engine and we made a quick escape.
• We watched a brief fight, complete with lots of roaring, involving two adult lion brothers. One had been mating with a lioness the day before, and apparently the brother wanted in on the action. Both lions sustained minor injuries on the face, but eventually the younger brother gave up his attempts. The female, for her part, lay in the shade watching her two suitors fight over her.
• After lunch each day, we were given a break of a couple of hours during the hottest part of the day, when most animals are not active. I was sitting on the small porch attached to my tent, reading. A small herd of animals browsed nearby. One of the  elephants appeared at the corner of the tent, pulling branches from some shrubs. It wasn't long before this young elephant was standing right next to the porch, pulling up vegetation growing underneath the tent, which was on an elevated platform. It was so close it could have reached out and touched me with its trunk. I remained motionless until it moved on.
• Another special moment was seeing an adult male lion babysitting his four little cubs while mama lion got some rest.
• We spent time watching two cheetah brothers chowing down on a freshly killed warthog one evening.
• As we left our second camp early one morning, we were treated to the sight of a pack of five African wild dogs. These long-legged members of the canine family are endangered, so it was quite a treat to not only see them, but be able to safely follow them until they found a sunny spot and settled down for a nap. The alpha female of the pack had
  
  
  sustained a serious neck injury in a fight with a member of another pack. She moved slowly and kept to herself. We also watched as the alpha male paid close attention to his 'girlfriend' in the pack, who also suffered a neck injury inflicted by a jealous alpha female.
• We had stopped on a sandy road to watched a couple of bull elephants sparring and pushing each other around. The incident didn't take more than a minute. One of the elephants then backed down and walked away. The other bull then turned its sights on our vehicle and actually started charging us, running down the road behind us as we sped away as quickly as sandy road would allow. Our guide believed the aggression was the result of he bull coming into musth, a time when bull elephants are in a heightened state of aggression due to very high testosterone levels.
• We got to see sitatunga (I love that name!), a marsh antelope that is very shy. Other antelope included the tsessebe, red lechwe and the common impala.
• My friends and I spent time with a couple of groups of meerkats. These cute little animals stay in their burrows until the air outside warms up. When they first crawl out of the dens, they turn their bellies to the sun to soak up the warmth. Then they begin looking for breakfast. Favorite foods include grubs and larvae, and we spotted one lucky meerkat eating a frog it had caught underground.
• Being up high is an advantage for meerkats, as it provides a better viewpoint for spotting potential predators. So these cute little members of the mongoose family could frequently be found sitting atop the shoulder or head of anyone sitting nearby. I had two of them sitting on my outstretched legs, until they began to squabble and darted away.

As we flew to the landing strip nearest our lodge in the Kalahari Desert, we could see large areas of blackened earth below. Some areas were still burning, with flames visible from the air. Once on the ground, we could see and smell the smoke. In a couple of places flames were visible, and smoke filled the air. The lodge where we stayed for four nights had been evacuated just a couple of weeks previously, and another lodge had been lost to the fire. I developed a nagging cough and sneezing from the smoke. I felt sorry for the lodge staff and for the animals that were subjected to the poor air for more than a few days.

In addition to hearing a lion roar from just a few feet away, I heard the trumpeting of an irritated elephant from very close as well. We were driving back to the lodge one evening. Apparently an elephant, unseen in the dark, wasn't happy with how close we were. Let's just say that the trumpeting of an angry elephant is very loud!

Despite some close encounters with wild animals, I have never felt afraid during my several trips to Africa on safari. Most of the time, animals intend no harm. The lion's roars aren't directed at humans, but at other male lions in the area. Elephants trumpet and bluff charge to remind us humans how big and powerful they are. (Of course, elephants have killed people, but such occasions are rare). Cheetahs aren't a threat to humans, Leopards, which are rarely seen in Africa, have killed people in India. I trust our guides to get us out of harm's way, and I have a pretty good idea of when a wild animal is feeling a need to attack.

We have started talking about next year's African safari, but no decisions have been made. Wherever it is, I'm sure it will be amazing.

The Death of An Elephant ... The End of A Dream

The last large dominant bull among the 120 desert-dwelling elephants left in the northwest deserts of Namibia was murdered earlier this week by a trophy hunter.

Yes, I said 'murdered,' because that's the only word that fits what was done to this elephant. It wasn't shot in self defense. It was going about its business, trying to survive. The official Namibian government response to the public outcry was that this bull -- which had never been a problem before -- had been declared a 'problem animal' and had to be shot by a trophy hunter. I say bullshit.

I have wanted to visit Namibia for several years, to see its wildlife that has adapted to live in the desert. Lions, elephants and giraffes, among others, manage to survive in the harsh Namib desert. I also was looking forward to photographing the amazing sand dunes and other landscapes. But the fact that Namibia allows trophy hunting using some bogus excuse, combined with its push to be allowed to sell its confiscated ivory on the world market, makes it impossible for me to visit that country. My conscience simply won't allow it. I will spend my money elsewhere.

That raises the question, which I and others who care about animals often ask -- how can someone take the life of an animal as a 'trophy'? The head ends up hanging on a wall in the mighty hunter's house, or the skin on the floor as a rug. Where is the thrill in shooting an animal going about its business? I once saw a photo of a young elephant that had been shot. It died with its mouth full of grass, so obviously the animal had been doing nothing more than eating. 

And it's not as if these mighty hunters with their high-powered rifles, large bullets and powerful scopes trek for days in pursuit of their quarry. No, they hire a local guide who drives them to the animal. The hunter then kills the animal and poses for a photo, all the while grinning like the moron he/she is.

How can anyone get pleasure from the killing of animals for 'fun' or recreation? In my mind, anybody who thinks this is 'fun' is a sick, sick person. There hasn't been any study of the psychology of trophy hunting, but there should be. If it's the so-called thrill of the chase, of being close to a wild and dangerous animal, why not 'shoot' the animal with a camera, as I do? 

I love going on safari. i love seeing the animals, observing their behaviors in their natural environment, and trying to capture their actions and emotions with my camera. I have photos of elephants and a leopard that I 'shot' in Kenya. I can look at those images and recall the thrill I felt when I saw the animals, and the sense of accomplishment I got when I knew that I had captured the memory with my camera. And the animals lived to be enjoyed by others.

My father, uncle and grandfathers hunted on occasion. They shot rabbits and squirrels, and we ate them. I wouldn't eat a rabbit or squirrel now, and I remember being sad to see all the bodies of the little animals. But I was a kid and ate what was served. My family members never hunted 'trophies' to hang on the walls. Hunting was just something they did, and the animals they killed never went to waste. There's a huge difference between hunting for food and killing an animal, especially an endangered animal such as an elephant, giraffe or lion, for 'fun.' 

I get it. Elephants are huge. They can be dangerous (although if left alone, they don't bother people). They eat a lot (some 200 to 600 pounds every day). They do sometimes come into conflict with humans, But why is the first reaction in dealing with any problem animal to shoot it? And why does the trophy hunting crowd, which spends far less in a country that allows trophy hunting than do tourists and photographers who want to see live animals, get to dictate the fate of animals? During my recent trip to Botswana, my three friends and I stayed in three lodges that employed untold numbers of guides, trackers, cooks, housekeepers, maintenance people and other support staff. All of these employees were from local villages. Tourist money keeps them employed and the lodges in business. And a solitary trophy hunter? He/she brings in money to the guiding company. End of story.

Killing an elephant doesn't just deprive tourists and wildlife photographers of the pleasure that comes from observing and photographing the animal. It also permanently removes that animal's lifetime of knowledge and experiences -- which would have been passed on to other, younger, animals. And since trophy hunters kill the biggest members of the species -- those with the biggest tusks or biggest antlers -- it also removes the genes responsible for those characteristics from the gene pool. When all of Africa's 'big tuskers,' with tusks weighing 100 pounds each or more, have been slaughtered, there likely will be no more big tuskers. The genes responsible for those magnificent tusks will have been removed from the elephant gene pool.

My hope is that some day African nations will follow the lead of Kenya and ban hunting. Perhaps some day these countries will value the wildlife not just for the tourist dollars they  brings, but also appreciate the inherent value of each animal. Elephants and all other species are part of an interconnected web of life that keeps the environment in balance and healthy. It's too bad human ignorance and greed always seem to outweigh the inherent value of the animals.

Botswana Safari: Part I

I recently returned from a two-week trip to the southeast African nation of Botswana,

Before I write about the amazing animals I saw and photographed, I want to write a bit about some things I observed during my trip, during which I was joined by three friends from the United Kingdom.

When I first learned of Botswana's decision to repeal the country's ban on hunting, I, like many others, was very upset. Due to poaching of African elephants to feed the Asian demand for ivory trinkets, elephants are facing extinction in the not-so-distant future if something isn't done to stop the killing.

What I learned from our guide and other local people hasn't made me OK with elephant hunting, but it did shed some light on the problem of elephant-human conflict. The plan would not open the country's elephant population (estimated to be at least 100,000) to large scale hunting. Anyone wanting to shoot an elephant would first have to obtain a permit from the government, and hunting would be limited to bull elephants. Bulls wander over vast distances as they search for elephant cows with which to breed. It is these elephants that cause problems with people, farmers' fields, etc. But opening the country up to any kind of hunting, regulated or not, is likely to encourage poaching, which can devastate a population. And elephants are such intelligent animals that shooting them for any reason makes me and many others very unhappy.

There was ample evidence of a bull elephant called George in our first camp, in the Kalahari Desert. A couple of nights later we found evidence that another, younger bull, called New Boy, had paid a visit to our camp. I never heard either bull, but both had left unmistakable evidence of their visit. We even saw the foot prints New Boy had left as he walked down a long dirt road from the park entrance to our camp.

One day our guide made the hours-long drive from camp to the Boteti River. During the trip we counted a total of 27 oryx, animals I had seen only a couple of times during previous safaris in Kenya and Tanzania. Once we reached the river, we got to enjoy the sight of several bull elephants spraying themselves with water and mud. One of the bulls took exception to our presence, although we were a safe distance from the river. He climbed a small ridge and started walking toward us. Elephants have a particular gait and look when they want to remind humans that they are much bigger and more powerful than we are, so our driver moved us out of harm's way. The bull never charged, but he definitely gave the impression that he was thinking about it. We ate lunch that day near a hippo pool, complete with a mother hippo and her little (relatively speaking) baby.

At our second camp -- a place I had stayed at a few years ago -- I was sitting by the fire waiting for dinner when one of the staff members sat down beside me. He introduced himself as Sue. I, of course, immediately was reminded of the Johnny Cash song, "A Boy Named Sue." I didn't have the heart to ask about the origins of his name, or even how he spelled it.

Because it is currently winter in southern Africa, nights and early mornings were quite cold (upper 30s to lower 40s F). Once the sun was up, temperatures climbed rather quickly, reaching highs in the afternoon well into the 80s F. But once the sun started to set, temperatures quickly dropped. During morning game drives, which started at 7 a.m., I wore a short-sleeve shirt, a long-sleeve shirt, a photographer's vest (zipped), a fleece jacked and a rain jacket. I also wore gloves, as well as a buff over my ears. I could have used one of my winter hats. Yes, it was that cold, especially moving along in an open vehicle.

At night, each bed got a 'bush baby,' a hot water bottle inside a fabric cover and slipped between the sheets. Each person also was given a bush baby and a blanket for the morning game drive.

Two of the lodges where we stayed had outdoor showers, which was wonderful on a sunny afternoon. Showering early in the morning or at night was just too cold, even in an indoor shower. There's nothing quite like taking a shower while watching baboons in a tree nearby.

Widespread fires in the Okavango Delta area resulted in lots of coughing and sneezing. Some fires were still actively burning, while most were merely smoldering. A layer of smoke and dust covered the ground every morning. Yet amidst this massive destruction, the land was sending up shoots just a few days later. The annual inflow of water from Angola hadn't yet arrived, and the water -- when it finally arrives -- is expected to be much lower than usual. Our rides in mokoros -- dugout canoes -- took place in water that was only 3 feet deep.

Because so much of the delta, which should have been covered with water, was dry, the animals had a much larger area in which to live, making finding them more difficult than usual. This was especially true with some of the predators, such as cheetahs and leopards. There were a lot of lions, and they live in prides, so it wasn't difficult to find them.

At our third camp, we had a tracker in addition to a guide/driver. James, the tracker, rode in a seat on the front of the vehicle. He quickly climbed into the empty seat next to the guide whenever we encountered dangerous animals, such as African wild dogs, buffalo and lions. One day we drove around the corner of a large group of bushes, to come fact to face with a male lion resting quietly. Our guide quickly put the vehicle into reverse, and James climbed into the interior of the vehicle.

Noises in the night: It wasn't unusual to hear animals at night. I heard lions roaring, elephants trumpeting, hippos grunting. One night I heard a noise I had never heard before. It turns out it was a giant eagle owl. I have seen this bird in Kenya, but never heard it. The noise sounded like something being attacked -- rather unnerving while trying to sleep.

One evening, as we were driving back to camp in the dark, we were startled by the very loud trumpeting of an elephant. Apparently we had startled it, or it wasn't happy about our presence, and it definitely made its displeasure known.

Botswana was full of death. There were bones scattered around, including the skill of a young elephant and the jaw of a hippopotamus. We spotted a buffalo that had been killed by lions late one day. The next day, after the lions, hyenas and vultures had finished with it, there was nothing left but the bones. The same thing happened with a waterbuck killed by lions in the morning. Later that afternoon, it had been picked clean. Vultures were in abundance, sitting on the ground and filling dead trees as they looked for a carcass. In some cases, it was impossible to see the carcass through the vultures sitting on and surround it. Despite the ugly nature of what they do, vultures are an essential part of the landscape as they dispose of the remains of dead animals.

One day we spotted a large group of birds -- mostly fish eagles, along with a saddle-billed  stork, hamerkop and marabou stork -- surrounding a small pool of water. The water had been home to numerous large catfish, but the water level was so low that the fish were struggling to breathe. This made them easy pickings for the birds. The water level had dropped noticeably later that day, and the water was nearly gone two days later.


New things: This was a new behavior for me: Two younger bull elephants, and an older 'mentor' bull, were having a dust bath. It was quite windy, and it seems that the wind and dust were irritating the eye of one of the younger bulls. So we watched in fascination as he used his trunk to rub his eye a few times. 

For the first time in my life, I got to see the Milky Way. The stars were amazing in the night sky without pollution from artificial lights obscuring the view. I didn't have a tripod with me, although I would have loved to try to photograph the Milky Way. 

We had two brief sightings of a pair of honey badgers, an animal I had never seen. They were running quickly, so the sightings were very quick.

On a morning game drive, we were following a lioness and her older cubs. One of the cubs decided to 'attack' a buffalo, which wasn't amused. So the buffalo turned and chased the lion cub, which made a hasty retreat. I had never seen a buffalo threaten a lion, although I know that buffalo have killed lions.

During a walking safari (with our guide carrying a loaded rifle for safety), we learned that palm nuts pass through an elephant's digestive system with only the outer covering being digested. The nuts then can give rise to new palm trees, sometimes being carried several miles in the water (before water levels dropped so low).  

We spent a bit of time visiting a Bushman village. These people live a primitive life, relying on hunting and gathering foods. Our interpreter was a young man who had 15 years of school behind him, but who choose to return to his ancestral way of living. The community was very welcoming and allowed us a glimpse into a culture about which we knew nothing.

These are a few of my experiences during this trip to Botswana. I will write another post about the many kinds of animals my friends and I observed and photographed. We have already started talking about where we hope to visit for next year's African safari.