The rainy season in east Africa means great skies most every sunrise and sunset. This silhouette of a hartebeest at sunset was taken in the Olare Orok Conservancy, just north of the Masai Mara in Kenya.

Cape buffalo always have this look on their faces like they want to kick your ass. They just stand and stare at you, squint a little as if to say you better not come an inch closer and then resume grazing after you’ve moved off. They are actually quite formidable and have been known to take down a lion or two when the lions try to get their young. We actually saw a herd of about 100 surrounding a tree that they had chased two lions up into. The standoff lasted about two hours before the buffalo moved off and the lions were finally able to come down.

Leopards are very strong and  are capable of dragging their prey up into trees — even large prey like this gazelle. They will do this to keep other carnivores like hyenas and baboons from stealing the kill. At first, we only saw the gazelle up in the tree while the leopard was nowhere to be found. We decided to leave for an hour or two and then circled back later to find her feeding.

We had just left camp early one morning in the Masai Mara when we spotted this black-backed jackal with a little breakfast. That’s a gazelle leg the jackal has in its mouth. And that’s the great thing about being on safari in Africa — you never know what you’re going to get. One day it’s a pride of lions with cubs and the next it’s a jackal with a gazelle drumstick.

It had been raining pretty hard when we came across a troop of baboons in Laikipia, Kenya. One by one, they were crossing a small river using a fallen tree. I caught this guy as he was in the process of climbing down from the tree before getting to the other side.

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.