There were limited places on the walk that morning and all our guests were eager to go – so Chris and I, as co-leaders and co-hosts, renounced all claims. What to do instead? Something we can’t really ask of our guests: absolutely bloody nothing. We went to the hide by the Kawere waterhole and sat in silence for four hours.

It was  — well, it was perfect, what else would be? We were in the Luangwa Valley in Zambia and all life was passing in front of us. Puku antelopes, a band of 13 banded mongeese (preferred plural), a saddlebill stork catching a massive catfish, quelea rising and sinking in unison like a church congregation.

It went quiet after the early comings and goings, annihilating all that’s made to a green thought in a green shade. Seven zebras came down to drink, making the best patterns. There was a sudden deafening falling-out among the baboons on the far side of the water.

Then the elephants arrived. The hide is sunk into the ground, so we were looking up from the height of the elephants’ knees. A group of three males drank at one end of the pool, at the other a small family group, three adults, a teenager and a baby. The matriarch from this group approached the males and briefly snacked alongside them, feeding on fallen seedpods; the baby followed her at a slight distance.

Then she moved away again without incident: perhaps friendly contact had been maintained, or even strengthened. The two younger males rested head to head and then started shoving at each other in a cheerful sort of way: this was affection, not challenge. I could hear the tusks click, and if they had been humans they would have been giggling.

It was half-past ten. Hard to tell whether the past four hours had taken ten minutes or several days. Green thoughts in green shades.

 

Oh – and here’s a list of the birds and mammals we saw and heard.

 

 

Red-necked spurfowl

Cape turtle dove

Pied wagtail

Tropical boubou

Laughing dove

Emerald-spotted wood dove

White-browed sparrow weaver

Common sandpiper

Meve’s starling

White-crowned lapwing

Egyptian goose

Hadeda ibis

Swainson’s spurfowl

Black-eyed bulbul

African hoopoe

Saddlebill stork

Grey lourie

African fish eagle

Malachite kingfisher

Fork-tailed drongo

Red-billed woodhoopoe

Wood sandpiper

Red-billed buffalo weaver

Lilian’s lovebird

Puffback

Golden weaver

Grey-headed sparrow

Red-billed quelea

Blacksmith lapwing

African jacana

Orange-breasted bush-shrike

Crested barbet

Hammerkop

Carmine bee-eater

Helmeted guineafowl

Lilac-breasted roller

Gymnogene

White-fronted bee-eater

White-crowned helmet-shrike

(39)

 

Puku

Impala

Yellow Baboon

Banded mongoose

Crawshay’s zebra

African elephant

Bushbuck

Warthog

(8)