Down time during the middle of the day, after lunch, was an opportunity to rest, download images from the morning shoot, recharge batteries and try and get some respite from the heat before the afternoon drive. I found it hard to ignore the bird photography opportunities around camp so spent a lot of time searching for birds on low perches or crouched in the dirt trying to line up backgrounds and foregrounds with foraging birds.

Hornbills were regular ground based foragers, using their large bills to pick out morsels ranging from tiny seeds to caterpillars and beetles.

Occasionally they would present options on perches or launching into flight.

Spurfowl would occasionally wander into camp but were a bit more wary than the hornbills. This young Red-billed spurfowl was quite intent and tolerated a slow and low approach.

Watching this young bird foraging was reminiscent of a farmyard chook scratching for morsels.

A Laughing dove joined the spurfowl in search of sustenance.

Burchell’s starlings are attractive in their irridence blue/green, but like other starlings and mynas are intelligent birds so wary of people pointing things toward them that look like the staring eye of a cyclops. I was lucky that this one was distracted enough by a morsel of food that it tolerated my proximity crouched on the ground.

Photos with Nikon Z9 and Nikkor Z 180-600mm f5.6-6.3 VR