Our 3-day camping trip in Chobe National Park included many hours of rewarding game drives. Tapiwa, our guide and driver, shared a great deal of information with us about animals and birds. Over 450 recorded species of birds live in the park and we saw just a fraction of the various types. We did find a few Chobe chickens (local nickname for guineafowl) on the last day of our adventure, but did not take any photographs of them. 

African fish eagle – national bird of Namibia, its toes are covered with sharp barbs to help it hang on to fish and other slippery food

• 

Wattled lapwing – also known as a wattled plover

• 

White-backed vulture – most common large vulture in Africa, wingspan of 6.5 to 7.5 feet

• 

Violet-eared waxbill – common type of finch in Southern Africa, one of the first birds to have genetic mapping of its brain so ornithologists and scientists could better understand brain function and social behavior

• 

Marabou stork – also called the undertaker bird when seen from behind because of its dark cloak-like wings and back, skinny white legs, and sometimes a large white mass of “hair”, averages 60 inches tall with a 12 foot wingspan

• 

Hamerkop – name is Afrikaans word for hammerhead because head shape, curved bill, and back shape resemble a hammer

• 

Kori bustard – Africa’s heaviest flying bird, with some males weighing up to 40 pounds; females are half the size of males

•