Impala were easily the most common animals that I saw in Botswana, and as such, they were often overllooked. That being said, they really are an elegant looking antelope. Usually they sat patiently while I took portraits of them looking at the camera, however, this one gave me a bit of an action shot when he ran across the savannah.
Back to Costa Rica for today’s photo of the day. These two squirrel monkeys were photographed just outside the lodge that I was staying at in Pavones, near the Panama border. Squirrel monkeys travel in large troops, sometimes up to 500. They are very small, growing to just about 13 inches (not including the tail) and weighing just 2 and a half pounds. Falcons and eagles are their main predators, but the fact that they travel in such large groups enables them to fend off most attacks. And just in case you needed one more wikipedia interesting fact of the day — “Female squirrel monkeys have a pseudo penis that they use to display dominance over smaller monkeys, in much the same way the male squirrel monkeys display their dominance.” Just in case you were wondering.
I know I’ve been posting a lot of backlit subjects from my Botswana trip, but the Kalahari Desert was the perfect place for these kind of shots with the sun on the horizon. Here’s one more, this time of a springbok just before sunset.
Lions sleep a lot, and this adult male was no exception as he plopped down in the grass to rest after filling up on an oryx kill. I was watching for a while, waiting for him to wake up when all of a sudden the cub appeared and crawled up onto the father’s belly. Dad seemed to enjoy the massage as the cub’s paws continued to dig into his fur.
With all the Africa pictures lately, it seemed about time to break it up a bit and post another Atlantic Puffin. This little guy was photographed earlier this summer off the coast of Maine on Machias Seal Island. There are several blinds on the island where you can observe the puffins as they come and go from their nests in the rocks along the shoreline.
The first time I went on safari back in 1999, I remember one of the highlights for me was seeing a giraffe running across the plains of the Serengeti. In Botswana, I got to see it again, this time in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. No other animal can be as graceful and awkward looking at the same time. Giraffes tire easily so are sprinters as opposed to long-distance runners. They can reach a speed of up to 35 miles per hour and have an unorthodox gait — the front legs and back legs work in unison. In other words, the front right leg moves in tandem with the right back leg and vice versa on the left side.
Pronking, also known as stotting or pronging, is a behavior displayed by some antelopes species, especially springbok. The springbok will leap very high in the air, lifting all four feet off the ground at the same time. It is done to alert would be predators that the pronking individual is healthier than the others and perhaps not worth the effort to try and catch. So I guess the springbok in this photo is saying something like, “hey lion, don’t try and eat me, go after one of my weaker friends here who can’t jump as high. Just trying to do you a solid and save you some energy.”
These guys are called reedbucks and with the exception of impalas, they were the most common antelopes I saw in Botswana. As the name would suggest, they were usually hiding in the tall grass.
Due to popular demand, here’s yet another meerkat (and still more to come). I had wanted to get a few silhouette shots and got my chance the afternoon of my second day on the Makgadikgadi Pan in the Kalahari Desert. This guy had the last shift of guard duty, while one by one all the other meerkats made a dash for the burrow to sleep for the night.
Once again, the cheetah brothers that I saw two nights in a row in the Linyanti Swamp area of northern Botswana. These are the same cheetahs in the photo that I sent a few weeks ago, perched on top of the termite mound. It was getting dark and they were surveying the area for a late dinner. When they began to look impatient — as if about to attack — I switched my camera to a slow shutter speed to capture the motion blur. They took off at the exact same time, but I believe both photos are of the same cheetah.