Big calm

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Originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

Friday morning and the sun came through the mist hanging over Lake Awassa after the downpour of the previous day. We took a horse and cart down to the lakeside for a few hours peace before embarking on the bus-ride up to Addis, moved forward a day after our bad experience of the day before.

Armed with binoculars we had great views of teh very varied birdlife at the lake's edge. In the shortest amount of time we had seen three types of kingfisher, first the large pied (black and white) kingfisher, then a bluey-grey one and then a number of bright azure kingfishers, red beak, orange breast and kingfisher blue back.... beautiful!

We also saw rails, a bittern, marabou storks, ibises, egrets, herons, hummingbirds, green and red parrots, geese, assorted waders, fish eagles, kites, blue starlings, little finches, long-tailed wrens, a green-gold-and-black bee-eater (mouth full with a dragon fly) as well as the normal bee-eater, some very large hornbills (how they can carry the weight of that bill as they fly through the trees?) as well as a very large crow-like bird also with a massive beak. (There are some pictures on the blog).

It was a lovely time.