Safari time, A picture blog

 Z for Zebra!

Cape Buffalo grazing while an Egret waits for the bugs that the buffalo stirs up.

   Fish Eagles








 

Secretary Bird, Largest flying bird in the world 

Superb Starling

 







Vulture... not really sure what kind.

                     Smells like.......









                                                 a Grant's Gazelle!








                                                                   Elephant Interlude:

So I think the majority of the 300+ pictures I took were of elephants. Seeing them in the wild, I really could just watch them all day. They're just so interesting.

                             Crowned Crane

Wildebeest, the lone ex dominant male.

Anyone know what these things are?







At around 10am we saw a group of safari cars parked and looking at something in the distance, so we got closer and saw a gorgeous female cheetah! I had to take these pictures with the teleconvertor and still she was so far away, but if you look you can see her spots!

So how do I know it's a girl? Right when we were about to leave, her 2 cubs popped out of the grass and started practicing their hunting with the supervision of mom of course.

Warthog!

 Ostrich. The ugly ones are the females, like most bird species. (But the smarter ones in all animal species)

 The Kori Bustard. Imagine what that sounded like coming from our swahilli-accented tourguide.

                    Yellow- Necked Spurfowl

 

This pretty boy, the Goliath Heron

We found this old boy who is probably 50 years old. His ears are almost "fraying" and you can tell by how used his tusks and skin look. Also, one of his tusks are shorter than the other indicating which "hand" is dominant.

Male (top) and Female (bottom) waterbuck

Hippopotamus! I get to see a lot more of them in the next few weeks!

 

A group of about 60 elephants crossed the road surrounding our safari car just as the sun was setting. They turned to the south toward mount Kilimanjaro in the distance. Such a surreal moment, the kind when you realize exactly where you are.

 As the day was coming to an end, the classic images of acacia tree silhouette on the horizon as the orange Africa sun sinks low, became a reality.