With their golden plumed heads, crowned cranes are clearly one of the more flamboyant birds in Africa. I’ve photographed them before in both Tanzania and Uganda but have never come across one like this Kenyan, bold enough to allow frame filling portraits. He even started to display a bit by puffing out his feathers and dancing around.

If you’ve ever been on an African safari, you know that getting close to lions isn’t a problem. I’m talking just feet away close. And for the most part, they won’t even acknowledge your presence (as long as you stay in your vehicle, of course). In this photo from the Masai Mara, I like the way that you can really see the texture in the lion’s tongue as she licks her paw.

This long-necked antelope is called a gerenuk. The name comes from Somalia and means “giraffe-necked.” We only saw a couple of these guys. The males have a bit of a thicker neck, as well as horns. When feeding on taller branches, gerenuks will stand erect on their hind legs. I was hoping to capture a picture of this behavior but the best I could do was this female staring intently at us with her diminutive little head atop that spectacular neck.

We had nice end-of-the-day light when we came upon a few giraffes feeding off the ground. This is somewhat unusual behavior for giraffes, who much prefer to feed on trees while standing upright. When they splay their legs out to eat grass (or more commonly, drink water) they are in a very vulnerable position to lion attacks. For the most part, however, lions won’t mess with a giraffe due to the giraffe’s powerful kick. This species is called a reticulated giraffe, and it was photographed in the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy of Kenya.

Verreaux’s eagle owls are the largest owls in Africa, and third largest owls in the world. When full grown, they can have a wingspan of nearly six and a half feet. These two youngsters weren’t even close to that size yet and were just beginning to acquire their adult plumage. I’ve seen eagle owls before in Tanzania, Uganda and Botswana and have always liked the bare eyelids, which look like pink eyeshadow. This feature will become more pronounced as they get older. This photo was taken on the last day of our Kenyan safari in the Olare Orok Conservancy just north of the Masai Mara.

One morning in the Masai Mara, we decided to take a hot air balloon ride. The balloon launched just before sunrise and I was hoping for a sunny morning so that I could capture the long shadows of animals from above. Unfortunately, there was no sun. There also weren’t very many animals — at least not the large herds that I was hoping for. I was, however, able to capture a few shots like these impala traveling along one of the well worn migration paths that crisscross the  savannah.

It wasn’t until the second to last night in Kenya that we had our first leopard sighting of the trip (although we would have two more on the final day). We were in the Masai Mara where you’re not allowed to drive off road and the leopard was quite a distance away. Several other vehicles were in the area, all trying to predict where she would make her move. We guessed right and were treated to a very close view as she passed about ten feet from our vehicle and then disappeared into the forest.

And now for a little old school technology. This little antelope is called a dik dik (I know, strange name) and figured I’d try an animated gif file to show how it constantly is moving its nose around. The flexible, trunk-like snout serves as a radiator to cool blood which flows through the nasal passages to the brain. This allows the dik-dik to be independent of surface water and to get its moisture from a leafy diet. Although you can’t really tell from this photo, dik diks are extremely small, one of the smallest antelopes on the planet, and when you see them running, they almost look like large rabbits.

Again, I repeat, there aren’t many things in nature much cuter than a cheetah cub. Here’s another one, this time letting out a big yawn/yelp while nuzzling up to its mother. I took this photo just before the sun went down in the Masai Mara in Kenya.

When I noticed that this ground hornbill had a frog in its beak, I immediately started snapping away, hoping to get a decent portrait or two. It wasn’t until I looked at the photos later that I realized the hornbill actually had two frogs in its beak. Oddly enough, it seemed to be saving the frogs for desert, placing them down every time it came across a beetle — then tossing the beetle in the air and down its gullet before picking the frogs back up and moving on. Most likely it was saving the frogs for chicks back at a nest.