Liuwa Plain’s shallow pans hold water through the wet season and draw birds to an otherwise unbroken grassland. Black-winged pratincoles gather around them in numbers, and the pans are the natural focus of a day spent on the plain.

The park was established in 1972 and has kept its emptiness: 3,660 square kilometres of grassland with very few vehicles in it. August to December is the window when the plain is at its best, with the pans filling as the rains come in.