There are several antelope-type species on the Mara which stand and look pretty when they're grazing but when they decide to run...wow, what a spectacle! They are so graceful and swift....just like you see on the Discovery Channel! (Again, I'm thankful that Bill was filming video, these still shots don't really do them justice.) The other thing we noticed was when we came upon a herd, we could tell right away if there was a predator around. Especially the lion or the cheetah. The males would all stand with their heads held high, absolutely no grazing...facing the direction where the threat was coming from - like sentinels on patrol. Of course our driver picked up on that immediately as well and knew that if we looked hard enough we could probably find the beast that was stalking them too. They never seemed threatened by the vehicles and would continue grazing as long as there weren't any predators around.
Here are some of the species that I caught on film...at least the ones whose names I can remember!
This is the Thomson's Gazelle. Its the smallest of the antelopes that we saw. They like to frolic about as well and they were also the most prolific...we dubbed them "African Rabbits".
These are pictures of Impalas - the males have horns and the females don’t. They are a little bigger than the Thomson’s Gazelle but just as swift and graceful. We didn't see as many of these and most of the ones we saw were females so we were excited when this group of males showed up at the watering hole...probably working on their pick-up lines for the large herd of females on the other side of the water!
Females waiting for the guys to buy them a drink
One of the larger types of antelopes is the Topi. We saw many of these as well and they would stand right there as we pulled up beside them...if I didn't know better I'd say they were striking a pose just for us!
These last two species didn't seem to be as plentiful as the Topi. The Waterbuck seemed especially elusive and we'd often times see only its head sticking out of the bushes so were lucky to get a full-body shot!
This is the Grant's Gazelle
...and the elusive Waterbuck...
There are some other very swift creatures in the Mara - some bigger, but no less graceful and some smaller than the antelope. Here's one of the bigger ones...
We were fortunate enough to see some Wildebeeste on Sunday on the way to Nairobi, just after we left the park. Most of the Wildebeestes have migrated to the Serengeti. You may have seen TV shows where these massive herds migrate up from the Serengeti to the Mara during the rainy season (April-Sept) and then migrate back south. Jonathan said there are a few small herds that have become “permanent residents of Kenya” and have not migrated. And low and behold, one of them ran right across our path on Sunday. The herd was probably 150-200 strong and they were stampeding across the road about a mile in front of us. By the time we got to them there were a few stragglers so we could snap a few photos. I think Bill may have caught some of the stampede on his video…it was a sight to behold!
The tail end of the thundrering herd...
I mentioned in the earlier posts that we looked long and hard for a leopard but couldn’t’ find one. Well we actually saw something just as rare. Another of the smaller animals which are hard to see because of their coloring and because they are very sneaky and elusive, is the Jackal. We came upon three Jackals playing in the road on our way back to camp on the last evening drive and fortunately they didn't run off.
So now we move on to the swift, but maybe not so graceful creatures. We saw several groups of Warthogs a couple of different times but these little guys are so quick to run that we could seldom get a good shot at them. Usually all we would see is a glimpse and then their tails sticking up out of the grass or partial spottings through the bushes as they ran away. Somehow we managed to sneak up on this group and get close enough that we could get a picture or two before they took off. The locals call them the “Kenyan Express” because they have their tails straight up in the air when they run! It was very fun to see this group, especially with the little ones...
And then there’s the Hyena….these guys give me the heebee jeebies! They are down right sneaky and scary. Very fast and graceful in their own way but I certainly didn't find myself oohing and ahhhing over them like many of the other animals. One of the guys got a really eery shot of one just after we returned to camp the first night but unfortunately I didn't get it from him yet. We saw this particular one on our morning drive but they tend to be much more active at night. Every night at camp you can hear them calling. It’s a very eerie sound and you know they are out there just waiting to catch some prey off guard….we actually had Masai guards posted at every other tent all night long every night and when they would hear one, one of the guards would go after it. Our last night in camp there was quite a ruckus and we found out in the morning that not only were there hyenas prowling about, there was a lion out there too!
That's probably it for my animal shots but I've got some interesting people shots I'd like to share with you as well...
No comments:
Post a Comment