Hippos

We were very lucky while on safari as we saw hippos several times, twice in places where we could overlook them from safety outside of the safari vehicles.  Hippos are among the most dangerous animals in Africa.  They are notoriously grumpy and ill-tempered and they can and do kill people.  What I found most surprising is that they are very fast and can outrun a man.  

They look like they would be slow and easy to escape, but this is not so.  They are especially dangerous in water, if, say,  you are floating by in your flimsy little canoe.  They can easily over-turn a boat.  They are big, too.  Much bigger than I'd expected.

A bull hippo will control a stretch of river and he and his harem (females and babies) will all congregate together in the water during the day.  They sunburn easily, so you'll find them in mud holes or mostly submerged in rivers.

The hippos leave the river (or lake or mangrove) in the evening and graze on grass at night.  They do not graze in herds as they are solitary diners.

If there is a smellier herd of animals, I don't know what they could be....nor do I want to be down wind of them.  This large group of hippos truly stank!

They certainly seem to enjoy their naps.

Do you remember the ballet dancing hippos in Walt Disney's Fantasia?  They were much cuter in that film than they are in reality.  Smelly, aggressive and territorial, they just aren't terribly attractive animals.

Birthday Stunner

My DH floored me today.  For my birthday he gifted me these beautiful earrings, these amazingly beautiful earrings.  He knows I'm a "pearl girl" and he surprised me (boy howdy, did he ever!!!) with these magnificent earrings.  Which, by the way, are too fine for me....

And then he gave me my real gift, the special hold-to-your-heart-and-cherish-always gift.  He said, mostly sincerely, "You are a pearl beyond price."

And, you know what Dear Reader?  I pretty much believed he meant it.  Mostly.  Bless his heart.

Giraffes!

 Oh, my, but we did see a whole lot of giraffes while on safari.  In fact, we saw giraffes right in Nairobi, at the Giraffe Center.  We also saw giraffes on our drive from the Nairobi airport to our hotel.  There is a national park in Nairobi!  It's the only city in the world with a national park attached.  (Unless I was ill informed....)

Nonie getting ready to feed a giraffe at the Giraffe Center, Nairobi

We saw mostly G. c. tippelskirchi, known as Maasai giraffes, which are found in Kenya and Tanzania.  We also saw some G. c. reticulata, which are commonly called reticulated giraffe.  To be honest, I couldn't tell one subspecies from another!

I think giraffe hide patterns are beautiful.  The shading is subtle but elegant.  Why don't you see more (faux!) giraffe hide designs in fashion and home furnishings?

Giraffes can not ever lie down.  If they do, they die.  It has to do with blood flow and neck length and heart pressure.  It causes a brain hemorrhage.  They do kneel down, to sleep or eat from short shrubs, but they never lie down.  This does make a rather rude introduction to the world for new born giraffes as they fall about four feet to the ground.

Giraffes are beautiful just standing still, but to see one galloping through the tall grass is stunning.  They are both elegant and graceful, and gangly and odd, all at the same time.

I have become very fond of giraffes.  They are intriguing and interesting and they have beautiful eyes.

Elephants and a Tale of Billy the Bully

Everywhere we went in the Kenya and Tanzania reserves and parks we were lucky enough to see elephants.  We saw single males off by themselves and we saw big groups of females with their offspring.

An elephant in the wild is truly magnificent.  They are graceful, surprisingly so, and quiet.  They can be very expressive.  By watching an elephant's ears you can judge their mood.  (Reminded me of how I could always tell my cat's mood by his ears....same thing with elephants, especially if you are an experienced elephant observer.)

Many elephant herds move back and forth long distances each day.  In the Ngorongoro the herds of females and young would spend the day down in the crater, near the watering holes and the long, tasty grass and then return to the hillsides in the evenings.  Back and forth, each day.

The female elephants will often put themselves between a safari vehicle and their young, protecting them from the interlopers.  This is the same behavior they use with any threat, real or perceived, to their babies.

And this brings us to the tale of Billy the Bully, a young male elephant who adores playing, bullying and beating up his long-suffering older sister......

Billy was first spotted as he chased this older juvenile female into and out of a stand of shrubs.  Crashing and running, they "galloped" around and around, in and out of the shrubs.  Billy was always the aggressor.

When he caught up to his sister, he'd poke her in the back end with his tusks and head butt her bottom.

Then he would smack her repeatedly with is truck.  He'd smack her side and then smack her ears.    She would be making an effort to avoid him, but she never turned on him or used her larger size to put an end to this bullying behavior.

Billy finally ended up just pulling her tail.  Our driver was trying to tell us that he was just holding onto her tail to "follow" along, but he was truly pulling on it.  It was just another way to be a bully!

He was really good at being the obnoxious little brother.

Big Kitties

I have had nothing but trouble trying to organize my photos from my spectacularly wonderful African safari.  I won't bore you with my technical issues, but my frustration has reached epic proportions.  I've decided to just give myself a break and instead of giving you the park by park tour that I had planned on posting, I'm just going to do this by themes (or animals) and not worry about chronological order and being precise on location.  Sorry if this frustrates you!  I do understand.  But expedience won out.

If I hadn't changed my plan, it might have been weeks more before I got around to posting anything about Africa!

These lionesses were napping in the tall grass late in the afternoon.  There were about 8 or 9 of them scattered around, mostly totally hidden.  These lions are having their annual hard time of it as the grass is tall, the wildebeest is much father south and the hunting poor.  Antelope and impala prefer shorter grass (where the lions show up clearly!) for grazing, so when the grass is tall because the wildebeest and zebras are elsewhere, the antelope mostly disappear.  Lions go hungry.

What prompted these lazy lions to pop up from their naps was the sound of a land cruiser.  A very specific land cruiser....one that belonged to the local park rangers.  The rangers have been feeding the lions occasionally to help them get through these lean months.  When the lions ascertained that the rangers were not bringing them dinner, they all, one by one, plopped back down into the grass---and became invisible again.  It was eerie to look out over this seemingly empty expanse of grass knowing that 8 or 9 lionesses were just out there.  Right over there.....unseen.

Of course, who knows what else was hidden in the grass???

This very lazy lion was totally bored by all the safari vehicles that were crowding the road just a few yards from him napping place.  The lions just ignore the safari vehicles.  I don't know what they think they are---some kind of lumbering, smelly and noisy "animal" that is not edible, perhaps?---but obviously safari vehicles are not interesting in the least.

This fellow had been sleeping in the shade of a safari vehicle in the middle of the road.  Finally the vehicle moved off, the lion found himself back in the bright sun, so he slowly rose, walked a few yards and collapsed back into a sleepy heap in the grass.  There must have been 10 to 12 vehicles right there, all stuffed with camera toting tourists.  He probably had 500 plus photos of his slumbering form taken in a five minute period!

This pride of hungry ladies had pulled down a young zebra and had devoured most of it before we arrived to watch the very end of the feasting.  You can see how very thin they are.  There were no males in this group at all, nor none nearby.

This little cub, maybe three months old or so, was having a nap in the heat of the day in a stand of trees.  There were three cubs there, one who was happily licking his feet (but behind a tree trunk where I couldn't get a decent shot) and one adult lioness.  She was, I gather, the baby sitter.

Breaking News!!!

I got an email, very early this morning.  The message read: "Rawlings has some news."  And the photo, well, the photo says it all!

We are giddy with gladness!

Technical Problems....

I have had a lot of trouble getting all of my Africa photos to load onto my computer.  I think (fingers crossed) that I've solved the problem.  I am almost done editing them and am nearly ready to start sharing my amazing adventure with you, Dear Reader.  In the mean time, try to find the leopard in the above photo.  It's there.  REALLY.  If you look very closely, at the mid point of the shot and them move your eye up until it's just about 3/4 of the way up from the bottom edge, you'll see a sort of dark spot.  That's an eye.....