Botswana Birding (1 Viewer)

Off to Botswana in a few weeks time and would love to get some shots of the birdlife there. Anyone got a nuggets of wisdom to pass on at all please. Will be shooting with a D60 and 100-400mm lens and will be base din Moremi, Okanvago, Naxi Pan areas.

Would love to get a blurred shot of a flock of quelea
a Africa Fish Eagle in action plus a stunning portrait of bee easters/Rollers.

Cheers in advance
P

How very lucky you are, I am green with envy! This is the best time of the year for photography there as the light is low and morning and late afternoon light is stunning. Nxai Pan - haven't been for years, was full of owls when I camped there. Try for the Pels fishing owl in Okavango. I'm sure you will get African fish eagles there as well. Are you going to Xakanaxa Lagoon whilst in Moremi? Sorry, can't really be of much help. I'm just enjoying thinking about it!

Hi, I am interested in knowing how your birding tour to Botswana was, and what specials you saw?

Would appreciate it if you had some time to share some information.

Thanks

Robert

Certainly

I kept a detailed journal of what we saw and photographed though it became more of the emotions of the various encounters than a tick list of species.

I have been asked to write features for UKPhotographics and NaturePhotographers.net which have been drafted and sent so I don't want to usurp those features too much.

For birding the Okavango river was incredible, fish eagles, squacco, blue back herons, egrets, comorants, darters, bee eaters and the kingfishers were amazing. Got some blurred shot of African Skimmer. Nothing out of the ordinary for the Okavango but special to me. I was able to get close up shots with a 400mm lens.

In the desert areas we found ostrich, cranes, storks and the inevitable vultures which were a blessing to help us find the lion kill. The Lilac breasted rollers were special but we didn't find any quelea at all which the guide found very strange perhaps it was just too dry the last rains were back in March.

A collection of some of the pics are on my website
www.madeley.garlick.net/afrogall.htm which you are welcome to view and any feedback will be grateful recieved.


Cheers
P

Hi Pete, thanks for the reply. I had a look at your site and thought the photos were great. Perhaps I shouldn't post any photos to the gallery afterall. That is .... after seeing the quality of yours. Oh, well photography is a hobby I enjoy, but must admit I struggle to make use of the manual setting when there is an easy to use automatic setting for pointing and shooting.

Botswana is certainly one of my favourite destinations and I can't wait till my next visit at the end of the month. Will probably be very dry too, but am hoping to see a lot of the migrants already in Botswana.

Cheers

Robert

Robert
If you drop me an email to [email protected] I'll gladly send the draft text for the article for you to read. The editor of NPN has approved it today.

I found Nigel Dennis Getaway guide to Nature Photography superb for advice. Also Richard du Toit A5 guide as well which is terrific and was in my bag the whole holiday.

Personally I always used AV mode and compensated -1/3 in bright conditions and -2/3 for dark subjects like hippo and elephant and sunset and it seemed to work just fine on the digital.

Took a big beanbag and that was about it. A DC invertor was useful to charge batteries and the digital wallet otherwise it was a pretty light bag. If I go again I will take a 300mmf2.8 with convertors instead of the 100-400 to get better AF and allow shooting for longer in the low light of dawn/dusk.

Really glad you liked the photos

Cheers
Peter