The ground squelches with excess water. Small turtles scuttle away from the danger of the game viewer’s wheels. And then finally, the pans. Stunning. Flocks of flamingo all the way from Walvis Bay on the coast, have they come to breed? Young ones, not as bright pink (perhaps they haven’t eaten enough canthaxanthin, the natural pink dye, yet) bring up the rear of the line. The rose quartz soldiers move as one, a wall of pink proceeding forward, scooping up nutrients with their large beaks. It is a paradise. Of course, it is. What else did we expect? I did wonder if perhaps the lions were just hidden in the thick foliage. It is a wild place, it brings out the wild in all of us. It’s finding turtles, small and large, in the pools of water. It’s seeing the wild landscape open up like the veld flowers that lend colour to it. The baobabs that stand proud and majestic.
What really got us excited, though, was the birdlife. Yes, that’s right. We had a bunch of birders among us. We saw a variety of birds, the birders getting all riled up with the debate over what species of little black and white feathered jobs were squatted on the mounds ahead of us. It turned out they were Whiskered Terns, also found at the seaside. Then the ducks, geese, bee-eaters, spoonbills, African Openbills, Saddle-billed Storks, herons and the Wattled Cranes with their elegant train of feathers flowing behind them like the back of a little black dress. The overall impression of the Nyae Nyae Pans in autumn is what one would have expected in spring. The veld flowers coloured the expanse of the landscape a soft shade of lemon yellow, interspersed with lavender and pink. Lilies sprouted up between the tall grasses, eagerly reaching skyward for more rain.