This morning, we woke up at Mara Intrepid Camp, bright and early for a 6:30am game ride.
So far, we’ve seen, in this order:
Impala
Impala, taken the day before. One male (horns on left) can handle stress of a harem for about two weeks before he grows weak from hunger and loses to the next challenger.
eland (biggest antelope)
The male eland has the oddest wobble on its neck.
warthog (who succeeded in not being breakfast)
lion (who failed at having breakfast–twice)
guinea fowl
our first cheetah sightings
These 5-but-now-only-3-after-two-tragic-accidents brothers are almost always found together, very unusual for cheetahs who almost always live and hunt solitarily.
crocodile
elephant
I’ll be posting plenty of elephant pictures, so will give this post some space.
giraffe
hippo
There was more than 30 hippos at the convergence of rivers this morning, and I think I drastically undercounted.
dik-dik (smallest antelope)
These guys are so small that I got lousy pictures of them, though we did get to witness two fight for territory–which was a little like watching teddy bears fight. Bing images gets the credit.
oxpecker birds symbiosing* with antelope
I took this back in Baraka’s enclosure. We have seen oxpeckers on beasts and antelope–most safari mammals are potential buffets!
and banded mongoose.
What in the world will we do *after* breakfast?
This place is wild!
*calm down, spellcheck. I’m just turning “symbiotic relationship” into a verb.
Needopedia 