Spotted Hyena Pup, KenyaKaren and I got back yesterday from leading another successful trip to Kenya. Being the middle of the long rains, we were worried about the weather, especially when looking at the forecast before departure and seeing heavy rains predicted for every day we were there. Somehow, however, we were able to work around all the downpours and didn’t miss a single game drive. We even got plenty of sunshine, and incredibly moody skies. I’m just starting to go through all the files, and I’ll get to plenty of those dramatic skies soon, but for today’s post, I wanted to share this close-up portrait of a mother spotted hyena and her newborn pup. We were told the pup was only a few days old. I missed the moment the Mom used her mouth to pull the pup out of the burrow, but caught plenty of other interaction between the two. Hyenas were everywhere on this trip, and we also saw a clan of ten or so that included multiple pups playing on the open savanna. Nikon Z8 with Nikkor 500mm PF lens, ISO 400, f/5.6 at 1/800th of a second.