What a huge waste of time. But damn, if it ain’t entertaining. National Geographic has managed to set up a live webcam feed from a remote watering hole located in a nature preserve in Botswana. What is exciting about this particular webcam is that it uses a satellite link to give us 20-25 fps and full audio. Suckfully, though, it needs the Real player. And there are times when it seems just about impossible to connect or maintain the connection for more than a few seconds. But I leave it on at the office and sometimes it runs for a couple hours without any interruption.
You can hear the splashing of animals bathing. You can hear the wild flap of wings when something spooks the birds. The camera pans around and zooms in on interesting creatures (though at night, it seems to just pan and zoom on a preprogrammed loop), sometimes so close, you can see water drip from their mouths after they come up from drinking. Quite a show, and since it is a live feed, you might luck upon some humping. One can only hope.