Our full day at Eagle Island Lodge started with a morning game drive. Our first sightings were of steenboks (very small antelopes), a giraffe, Gray Go-away-birds (which get their name from their “go-away” call), and Marabou Storks and White-backed Vultures congregated around a buffalo carcass.
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We next encountered a large herd of hippos in a river.
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We left the river and had more sightings – giraffe, a young lechwe, elephants, and zebras.
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Our driver stopped at a strangler fig (so named because it wraps itself and grows around a host plant and slowly kills it over time) and at a baobab tree, which has a bottle-shaped trunk and fibrous bark used for making mats and other woven objects. We also passed a palm tree with a crooked trunk, a result of its effort to compete with the neighboring tree for sunlight.
Strangler Fig
Baobab Tree
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We spotted a wildebeest herd and more elephants, storks and vultures on our way back to the lodge.
Sausage-tree (named for the shape of its fruits)
