Can you believe I've sent ten letters without a bird one!  So here's the first bird letter.  We have cattle egrets here in the Southeast and they are the same as the ones in Southern Africa.  They came to Brazil in a storm in the mid 1900s and have slowly increased their range till they cover a large area of the States.  They were everywhere in Botswana, where they should be called buffalo egrets, because that's where we saw the most.  But there were a lot in San Camp too.

Usually one sees them on the ground following grazing animals eating the insects that are stirred up, but we saw a lot in trees where they are much easier to photograph.

Up close they are more colorful than you would think  Here's one grooming.  You know how you can try to smooth a feather you find on the ground by running your fingers along it?  Well, it works a lot better with a beak.  This grooming motion puts all the little parts of a feather right in line for smooth flying.

This shows the orange breeding plumage on the breast.

There will be a lot more egrets when I get to the buffalo pictures.