We left Etosha on 13 August and headed northeast towards the Caprivi Strip, the narrow corridor of land between Botswana, Angola and Zambia. Our destination was the Hakusembe River Lodge, some 16 km west of Rudu, the capital of the eastern Kavango region. Although 13 August was mainly a travel day, we stopped a couple of times to do some birding, with lunch at Roy’s Rest Camp being particularly productive. There we saw the Black-faced Babbler, which has a very limited distribution, limited to northern Namibia, northwest and a small area of southern Angola.
We arrived at Hakusembe River Lodge in the late afternoon and settled into our comfortable accommodation before doing some early evening birding around the lodge. The lodge is situated on the bank of the Cubango River, with Angola visible just a few hundred metres on the other side of the river.
The grounds of the lodge provided some excellent birding and we saw African Gray Hornbill, Hartlaub’s Babbler, Rufous-Bellied Heron, Gabon Boubou, Little Bee-eater, Kurrichane Thrush and Eurasian Hoopoe.
