Back to Africa!

In 2010 before we started sharing travel content online, we took a trip to Zambia (Click here to our photos and story Biggest Animals, Small World)) and Botswana. We joined Wilderness, a conservation and hospitality company that runs small remote safari camps, locally managed and is engaged in community development projects, for 7 days of safari with our extended family. It was life changing for the three teens we had with us and one of the fondest memories we share with our relatives. Big game safari is everything one imagines it will be, and we were anxious to go back to this huge continent to experience other cultures and ecosystems. A family emergency caused a cancellation of a planned trip to Madagascar and Uganda in fall of 2024 , but finally, this May, after 15 years away, we get to return to Africa, this time to Uganda.

Lilac Breasted Rollers are some of the most colorful birds in the world.

In 2010, we visited Botswana for most of our fly in safari with Wilderness, staying 2-3 days each at Little Vumbura, Duma Tau, and Chitabe Lediba in three unique ecosystems, home to the famed “Big Five” (lion, elephant, Cape buffalo, rhino, and leopard) And while we saw all 5 of those animals, we also saw dozens of other animals from playful baboons to colorful lilac breasted rollers! As with all safari and animal expeditions we’ve done, we are always hopeful to see “charismatic mega fauna” but we go with an open mind and low expectations, knowing nature always has its own agenda!

Baboons live in larger social groups that are fascinating to watch.

A group of zebra is called a “dazzle” and when you see a huge herd in the wild it it easy to see why!

I always say that any trip to see landscapes and animals is poorer if you don’t also experience a “side of culture with that”! Meeting local people and sharing their food, music and culture, is one of the best parts of visiting any place! Traveling with a mindset only to see the natural world and not experience meeting local people is missing very important information about that ecosystem which must support human life too! We were fortunate to experience meeting local guides, touring communities where Wilderness working, and getting to dance and sing with local people!

So what are we hoping to see and do in Uganda? We’ll have the opportunity to go on safari with Natural Habitat Adventures, one of our favorite small group wildlife focused tour companies. We will visit three distinct ecosystems over two weeks. The first area, part of the Rift Valley of Africa, the Murchinson Falls National Park, is home to traditional “big five” and their grazing prey, such as antelope, and zebra they seek.

We learned first hand the difficulty large predators, like this leopard in Botswana, have trying to find food. Birds that can fly will spot predators and make alarm calls to warn other animals in the area that a leopard or lion is hunting.

Giraffes also play a part in warning about predators in the area, by being tall, they spot predators and will also warn other animals by moving off, and smaller ungulates will move off to safety with them.

The second part of our journey in Uganda will take us to the upper part of the Nile river and its feeder waterways. There we hope to spot elephants, hippos and crocodiles.

In Botswana, a large elephant objects to a safari vehicle as it crosses our path

An African Fish Eagle in Botswana, these birds fish along the water ways.

This hippo, seen in Botswana from Duma Tau, is one of the most dangerous animals when it’s out of the water!

The last part of our trip in Uganda will be focused on seeing the great apes, with four treks to hopefully see chimpanzee and gorilla in the equatorial rainforest at Kibale and Biwindi Impenetrable National Parks.

In Botswana, in 2010, the animals got close (although this was taken with a very long lens!) and our hope is have incredible experiences with the places, people and animals of Uganda in the coming weeks!

Our hope is have incredible experiences with the places, people and animals of Uganda in the coming weeks! We hope you enjoyed seeing the animals we saw in Botswana 15 years ago…and keep watching here to see what photos and experiences we we have from Uganda in the coming weeks!

Wildlife in Our Backyard

Continuing with our theme of enjoying what is in our own backyard, (see our last post This Spring Glows!) we have some fun wildlife to share from our home state of Maine! If you follow Go See It Travel, you know we venture far and wide to have the opportunity to see unique wildlife all over the globe! One of the difficult things about wildlife travel is if the weather or wildlife doesn’t cooperate, you might not get to spot the animals you came hoping to see. In Patagonia, during our 10 days, we never did get the opportunity to see puma despite spending many hours tracking them with expert guides, (see our report here) That’s how it goes and what you have to accept as a wildlife traveler. A wise local guide in Alaska once told us, ‘The animals don’t read the guide books’! But looking for wildlife where we live allows us to spend more time, under the best conditions, looking for animals. Read on to see what we’ve spotted in the neighborhood and some of the stories of these amazing animals we call our neighbors!

Buttercup the Bear

One evening driving home from dinner out, we spotted Buttercup enjoying some tasty greens in a field near our home. With binoculars and a long lens (400 mm), we were able to observe her from a safe distance in our car without disturbing her dinner. After about 20 minutes she ambled off into the woods and seemed to disappear into the shadows.

We first “met” Buttercup a few years ago…a yearling cub on her own probably for the first time, she blundered far to close to us while we were walking along our dirt road (her dirt road now!) An older, smarter bear would have known to stay hidden in among the trees where we couldn’t have seen her, but this little one ran off terrified of us, through a field of buttercups and earned her nickname! She was curious enough to come back out of the woods and take a little peek at us from further down the road!

In 2023, we spotted Buttercup heading to the shore to look for shellfish and possibly eggs of nesting shore birds.

Over the years, we’ve often spotted her in the early spring near the coast where she eats easy to find shellfish after she wakes up from her long winter nap, then she moves further inland probably terrorizing back yard chickens and roaming the blueberry barrens when the berries are ripe.

A neighbors trail cam picked up Buttercup on an evening prowl

A week or so ago we read in the newspaper about a collision between a bear and car just up the road, but the bear ran off, so there was no report of the condition of the bear and we worried about Buttercup! Then while photographing birds on the beach a few days later, we noticed a big, fresh bear print in the tidal mud right over the tracks we’d left walking along the shore. Seems she’d taken another little peek at us, this time, an older, wiser bear, she knew to stay hidden till we passed. But her pawprint told us what what we needed to know…she’d survived her collision with the car!(or not been the bear hit)

We had Buttercups prints from an earlier crime…an attempted B&E of our vehicle, so we recognized them in the mud after hearing the reports of the car/bear collision in our neighborhood and could surmise she was ok!

Birds and More Birds

Not being sit-on-the-beach people, most of the time we are enjoying the shore, it’s in a kayak or on a walk, with binoculars and cameras in hand. These are some of our neighbors on the beaches and waterways.

Our resident osprey family has succeeded beautifully in our neighborhood, with subsequent generations returning and setting up nests on any tall tree, pier or pole…including power poles which has caused occasional power outages during the early spring when the osprey drop huge sticks onto power lines!

Once the nest is built and eggs are laid, the pair will fish, first to feed themselves and regurgitate for their young chicks and later bringing whole fish to the nest to feed the larger chicks. Then on a windy day, we’ll see the youngsters fledge, taking their first flights, with comical landings and frantic flapping as they learn how to work with the wind and air currents to fly, and eventually fish directly out of the ocean!

A merganser takes her brood out for a ride on the ocean

We joke that there are two kinds of gulls in the world; french fry gulls who live near people and eat people food like french fries on a busy beach and seafood gulls who live in more remote places and feed on shellfish. Our gulls are seafood gulls and they are naturally very shy of people, making them harder to observe and photograph!

Our noisiest neighbor, the song sparrow, sings beautifully and eats the bugs that bug us, so we love having them flitting around in the marsh near or home!

This semipalmated plover is a seasonal visitor who comes to our beach to feed on tiny crustaceans and sea worms at the edge of the tide. They arrive during their long migration to feed and rest up for the rest of the trip. We help by avoiding letting dogs on the beach and shooting photos with a long lens so they aren’t disturbed.

Eastern Blue Birds nest in boxes monitored by volunteers from Down East Audubon

Volunteers from DE Audubon serve as citizen scientists, monitoring Eastern Blue bird nesting boxes and reporting how many eggs and chicks and how many pairs are nesting.

The alewives (small fish) swim upstream to spawn and the eagles follow to feast on the concentration of tasty fish in shallow water.

Deer

A young male deer poses for our trail cam!

A family of deer has, for the last few years, started stashing their fawns under a window where our daughter works at home, while they browse, knowing predators won’t come close to the house. It gives a chance to see them from the safety of the house or on trail cameras. Everywhere seems to have lots of deer these days…they’ve become a nuisance in many areas, eating garden plants, leaving ticks behind and more dangerously, causing collisions with vehicles when they run into the roadway.

This doe and her young fawn wander right into our yard

So We Have Wild Animals in the Backyard!

When we travel to see wild animals, we let the wild animals be wild, allow predators to thrive, we don’t feed any wild animals (including birds…which is fun, but can inadvertently change the local ecosystem and encourages predators into our back yards where they can have negative interactions with humans and pets.) Even at home, we watch them and photograph them from a safe distance, both for our safety but also for the animals to feel undisturbed as they go about their day surviving the environment. Wise wildlife guides have told us that if the animals notice us and change their behaviors when they see us, we are too close. Sometimes, we do have to assert ourselves (such as shouting off coyotes who move into our yards) and our territory, so wild animals will avoid humans, pets and livestock, but usually we can observe them and let them be!

Despite the challenges living with wild animals, we enjoy watching them in the wild. We impact the animals and they impact us, but I guess we all have to try to be good neighbors!

A Good Night In Boston

It was a warm sunny afternoon and pleasant evening, not yet short sleeves weather, but perfect spring in New England weather, in late April, before the graduation crowds and summer tourists descend. The perfect kind of night to enjoy the city. And except for spending more on parking than on dinner, it was perfect!~

Boston was filled with good natured locals enjoying their city, in a good mood with the Sox drubbing the Cubs 17-0 at Fenway and both the Bruins and Celtics winning playoff games away from home. Everyone was in a good mood. And anyone who knows New England knows that if the Boston sports fans are happy, it’s a more pleasant place to be!

At the Museum of Fine Arts, multicultural kids flowed into Hallyu! an exhibit of Korean pop art, music and fashion that has influenced the culture worldwide, while also referencing ancient Korean culture.

Meanwhile, suburban garden aficionados flowed into the MFA for Art In Bloom, an annual springfest of floral arrangements designed by Massachusetts Garden clubs to interpret dozens of artworks chosen by the MFA across the museum and in every medium. With the delicate florals lasting only a few days, this popular event sees thousands of visitors during one short weekend. The blossoming trees around the museum and in the Fens were also putting on their own show!

It was fun seeing how works we loved were interpreted in flowers, while also noticing art pieces selected for the show that we’d never noticed before!

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Later, the famed North End of Boston, home to the best Italian restaurants and bakeries, was bustling with happy sports fans (except those two we saw in Chicago Cubs jerseys) and college kids blowing off steam before final exams. The North End was filled with twinkly lights. traffic, lines of diners waiting for tables in tiny wine bars and firefighters in Barcaloungers with the garage doors wide open watching the B’s on a big screen mounted to the wall, until a call came in.

We ended the night joining the fast moving line at the pastry shop, selecting traditional Italian pastry to eat on a bench in the Rose Kennedy Greenway while a young busker played her “electric” violin. It will be our last night in the “big city” for a while, but it was fine one!