Day 3 - Hippos, Elephants and Low Rollers

Day 3 – Hippos, Elephants and Low Rollers

tony
July 26, 2026
Bird Photography / Botswana / mammals / travel / Wildlife
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Hippo resting in a waterhole. Harsh middle of the day light not ideal

After we lost contact with the wild dogs, we took a break at a waterhole before exploring further. This gave an opportunity for some hippo images.

After sunrise, the low warm light is soon lost meaning most of the day we had only harsh unflattering light. This can be a useful time to look for textural images that translate better into monochrome than as colour. Hippos with their textured skin and bristles are perfect candidates.

Hippo - monochrome image accentuates texture despite harsh middle of the day sunlight — Hippo – monochrome image accentuates texture despite harsh middle of the day sunlight

Moving on we encountered a group of Marabou storks at rest with Egyptian geese in a patch of flooded grassland.

Aiming back for camp in the midday heat we found a large bull elephant keeping cool by spraying mud over his back. My overwhelming recollecting on viewing these images is of the baking heat and the envy I felt for the elephant enjoying his shower. One of our treats was a cool shower fully clothed at midday as this gave us some refreshing, albeit temporary evaporative cooling as our clothes dried.

Male elephant spraying mud over his back to cool off

This elephant behaviour gave the opportunity to try some slow shutter images to capture the movement of the sprayed mud.

Slow shutter image of elephant spraying mud — Slow shutter (1/40s)image of elephant spraying mud

Lilac-breasted rollers are common, colourful and dramatic so make great subjects. On low perches they offer much nicer opportunities than on high perches so low rollers were much more appealing to us than high rollers and we tried our luck any time the opportunity arose.

Returning to camp for lunch we recharged batteries and did our best to hide from the heat for a while. I found it hard to switch off from all the opportunities so spent quite a bit of time photographing the birds around camp beneath the shady shelter of the tree canopy. As the sun began to nudge down toward the horizon we set off again in search of subjects.

A Verraux’s Eagle owl with typical pink eyelids was suffering in the heat, gular fluttering in the shade and beautifully camouflaged among the branches.

As the sun nudged down to the horizon it threw some lovely warm light across the water as a cooperative hippo rose through the greenery. No need for a monochrome version with this one.