“CAN YOU hear those birds?” asked our guide, Mr P, tilting his head in the direction of an occasional faint squawk. The Okavango River meanders through a maze of tall papyrus. As our boat rounds the corner, following the sound, we finally see them. Clinging to papyrus stems, which grow six feet tall, are hundreds of fish-eating birds: great and little egrets, squacco herons, night herons, an African fish eagle, pied kingfishers and their miniature but more dashing cousins, malachite kingfishers. My fishing-buddy-turned-personal-ornithologist, Nat Bacon, identifies them for me. The birds squabble among themselves, arguing about who gets to perch where, oblivious to our staring.
Sometimes, alongside this feathered symphony, is what sounds like the crack of a .22 rifle. “This is good,” is Mr P’s reassuring diagnosis. He was raised on the banks of the Okavango, the son of a river bushman, and knows every turn, and seemingly every papyrus stem, by heart. For the past hour we’ve been cruising downriver, searching for this frenzy of feeding birds. We’vesun is still burning off the night-time mist, and Nat has already checked off about 30 different bird species, from fork-tailed drongos to lilac-breasted rollers. But for all the sight-seeing excitement, we’re here to catch tigerfish on the fly, and the key to success is finding the birds.
