SATURDAY CRITTERS - Sunrise walk on the Wild Side in Malawi

Well I hope you are up bright and early today for our armed guard has arrived and we are leaving for the Nkhota – Kota Wildlife Reserve.  Before we left we saw this dung crawling with small insects and also saw this yellow butterfly below.

We passed through the gate to the Reserve and then parked the car and started our walk on foot. 

All ready then?  Off we go.

It was extremely hot and Judith was lucky she had brought her African cloth to cover her head.  My camera and binoculars weighed heavy round my neck in this heat.

This bird was quite a distance away so the shot below is cropped so that you can see it better.  It is Arnot’s Chat Arnot's Chat - Myrmecocichla arnoti 
17 cm; 36–44 g and was the only one I saw in Malawi.

A striking, black-and-white chat, most similar to Mountain Wheatear (but ranges nonoverlapping). Male all-black with white cap and shoulders; female lacks white cap, but has conspicuous white throat and upper breast, often scaled with black. Juv. is duller, with a mainly black head and throat, but has white shoulder patches. Voice: Song is a varied series of canary-like, warbling whistles; ; call is a quiet, whistled ‘fick' or ‘feee'.

It is restricted to mature miombo, mopane and teak woodlands with an open understorey. Occurs in pairs or family groups; lively and conspicuous birds, moving frequently from tree to tree, dropping onto the ground at intervals to forage.

You can see the type of terrain we were walking through. 

There were very few birds and this one is a Black eyed Bulbul.

                    We had been walking for about an hour then we came 

             to enormous rocks which at times were quite challenging to climb.

We had to be very careful we didn’t fall in the river as the guide said there were Crocodiles in it!

Passed a Laughing Dove and I have to say I was really struggling in the heat.  How are you all doing?

When we reached the top of some rocks, we stopped as Judith had brought some refreshments. You can see Annika scoffing the crisps below.

Off we go again.  These are my feet and I was amazed at the wonderful patterns on some of the rocks.

We came across a number of Helmeted Guineafowl and you can just see the last one disappearing into the bush.

At last we came to a larger river where there were a lot of Crocodiles and one solitary Green-backed Heron.

There was a lot of Crocodiles just moving beneath the water and some out of the water!  I was very reassured  to have the armed guard with us.

These were huge Crocodiles.  I have a short video of them below.

CLICK HERE if the video does not appear below.

I hope you enjoyed this post and are not exhausted from the walk and great heat. 

I am linking with SATURDAY CRITTERS.

Thanks for visiting and enjoy your weekend.

Many thanks for all your comments on this post.