This was our second river game drive and it was in the afternoon. This is on the Kafue River. We saw all the same animals on the Kafue River that we saw on the Lufupa River, so I thought I would show off some of the more unusual wildlife sightings. Again, people go to Africa for the big five and the other major animals but we got to see all sorts of animals and many were interesting and entertaining.

I included this photo just to show the size of the boat. Clearly this boat was not made for running into hippos. It was just six tourists and one guide so plenty of room to move around to get into position for good photos.

This baby hippo was asleep and never moved while we watched it. It’s mother and other family members were in the river and just out of the photo to the left. Our guide estimated this baby to be two weeks old. I would guess that momma hippo positioned the baby here to be difficult to see and access from the land above and in a place that she could easily guard from the river. It seemed to be sleeping peacefully.

Here’s one reason that momma hippo needed to be careful where she had her baby hippo sleeping. This was a big crocodile. He went into the river and started swimming in our direction before it went below the surface of the water. I made sure I wasn’t leaning out of the boat at that point.

I took this photo looking straight down into the shallow water of the river, near the bank. Mr. Crab looked pretty comfortable in his environment. We never got to eat any crab in southern Africa but they definitely have some crab in the rivers and this was a good sized crab at that.

African Fish-Eagles are one of Africa’s iconic birds. We saw many of these birds every time we were near a large river or lake. They were easy to spot and to identify. They make a loud piercing yelp that is a common sound in areas where they live. They build large nests high in large trees. They generally hunt from high perches over or near the water. African Fish-Eagle’s mostly catch large fish that swim near the surface of the water. They will also take young flamingoes, ducks, crocodile hatchlings, monitor lizards, and turtles. Sometimes they are pirates and snatch fish away from herons, storks, pelicans, and kingfishers.