I’m sure most would have expected me to start with elephants for my first post in a series on babies in the bush; and I was tempted to. We spent time with so many large herds, and saw so many young elephants, I am spoiled for choice with images. But, I decided that I would start with something different, and chose to focus on animals with hooves instead. My timing was wrong to see tiny impala, but I did see a fair number of young giraffe, waterbuck and zebra during my travels.
I hope you enjoy my selections, and wishing you an excellent week ahead.
This giraffe was acting a bit like a crossing guard for several youngsters crossing the road in front of us. Not the best images, but great to show the size difference between the babies and the adults. I only wish there had been an impala in the shot too, to really show how large the young giraffe actually are.Fulfilling the cross guard role as another youngster moved from one side to the other. There were about a half dozen giraffe in this group in total.A herd of zebra pause to allow the littlest one a chance to suckle.A young waterbuck blending quite nicely with the autumn tones of the bush. Mom was nearby grazing.A zebra and her foal pause to check out our vehicle, before carry on slowly strolling through the bush.One waterbuck mama acting as babysitter for a group of youngsters. They were all lounging close to the dam at Chitwa Chitwa, while other members of the group were grazing or drinking.Little and large.
I was fortunate to see lots of youngsters during my latest travels. While the young elephants are definitely my favourite to watch, especially when they start waving their tiny trunks around trying to act tough, all the young animals in the bush are a delight to see.
Here are just a few of the sightings that I had.
A giraffe calf having a late afternoon milk break.We spent some time with this pair of rhinos while they grazed away the early morning. Here the young one had just turned to look as another vehicle was heading in to take over our viewing position. Moments later, the head was back down and he was happily munching on the grass again.A pair of lion cubs suckling.A young leopard doing a very accurate impression of a sulky teenager.Got milk?
A giraffe reaching for a choice morsel, high up in an acacia tree.
Because of an abundant wet season, there was a lot of food (and relatively speaking) a lot of water on offer in the desert while I was there last April.
This might be an odd take on the topic of the week, a face in the crowd, but the purpose of the topic was to using different angles and orientations, shadow and silhouette to mask some of the features of the subject.
Portraits aren’t my thing, so I have decided to share a silhouette image.
The photo challenge topic of the week is peek; showing just a glimpse of your subject. It’s a great topic to have while going through safari photos, as sometimes, the best you get on a sighting is a brief glimpse of the animal that you have been tracking.
On this morning, we followed the meandering tracks of a lioness until we came across a very agitated female giraffe. It didn’t take long to find the drag marks into the bushes, and then find the lion with her tiny calf.
A desert-adapted lioness with a giraffe calf, seen near the Hoanib Skeleton Coast Camp, Namibia. April, 2017.
