'When I arrived in Botswana in 1979 I spent some time camping at Savuti just upstream from the ford at the gate. What interested me was that the entire length of the Savuti channel had dead acacia trees in its riverbed. These had grown up when the Channel dried up completely for several decades. Then they all died when the Savuti started running again in the late 1960s. They also provided very convenient perches and nesting sites for birds for a while although the Channel then dried up again in the mid 1980s and then most of these drowned acacias vanished in bush fires. This Martial eagle loved to sun itself on the small dead acacia sticking up out of the Savuti just in front of where I had made a small camp.'

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