from riverbank TO SAVANNA

It's not only the waterways of the Kavango-Zambezi Transfronteir Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA) that enthral.

- ANGUS BEGG

The longer the journey progresses, the more one learns. While a metaphorical interpretation of this statement might lead to Scott Peck's The Road Less Traveled, when taken literally in the Kavango-Zambezi (KAZA) region - in fact, anywhere along Africa's great river valleys - new worlds always open up. On this particular trip it was the relationship between people and birds and nature that struck me, first on both sides of the Zambezi River a little upstream of Victoria Falls, then a few hours further south in Hwange National Park.

But let's start at the beginning. While going through border formalities at Kazungula en route from Botswana's Chobe region to Livingstone in Zambia and the Victoria Falls, I thought back to how Lesser Striped Swallows had constructed their nests on most, if not all, of the border post buildings we'd gone through over the past week. So habituated have they become to the throngs of border traffic that their feathered finery is on daily display for those in the queue.

These swallows are common for the commuters but less so for the average tourist - and definitely for our small group, all of whom reside in the northern hemisphere. The closest I get to common in my part of Haarlem in the Netherlands, apart from the four types of seagull that squawk throughout the summer night, are the remarkable Common Swifts that announce the onset of spring.

This, however, was the tail end of the southern hemisphere summer and there were delightful birds to be seen, some before they flew north with the change of season. Our first bird, on a bend in the Zambezi River, was all beauty and statuesque – and not remotely migrant.

Down by the river