As well as female camp staff here, there are also female guides and we'll be spending the next two days with Esther who seems very nice. We'll be sharing the truck with A&J, first timers from Alabama and two very lovely people. So just a few general shots as we were out and about.
A tangle of legs.
There are several large lion prides in the area which unfortunately means the leopards and cheetahs have gone elsewhere, but we haven't overdosed on lion yet so we don't mind. Being mid afternoon they were a little lazy.
Lionesses groom each other primarily to strengthen social bonds, reinforce pride unity, and maintain hygiene by removing dirt and parasites. This behaviour reduces tension, acts as a peacekeeping mechanism after conflicts, and helps share familiar scents to confirm group membership.
This young male was very handsome, pity he's half hidden in the bushes.
A little later on as we were driving around, suddenly out of nowhere came this hippo at full pelt - they can get up to speeds of 30 km/h and
It was heading directly for us and could quite possibly overturn the truck. Esther backed up as quickly as she could but you can see how close it came to us.
Luckily it decided to turn away - phew!
We've seen very few monkeys this trip and this lone Vervet was keen on getting the fruits of this Ficus racemosa (Cluster Fig)
We then stopped at the water crossing we'd passed on the way to camp and these two were just play fighting but the light was quite lovely.
Driving across a fairly open area we saw this Marabou Stock just standing around.
It then gave us a beautiful view of its impressive wingspan; somewhere between 7.5-9.5’ making it one of the largest flying land birds in
the world.
And another lone Vervet picking around on the edge of a swampy bit of ground. I think it's picking and eating the plant's tubers much the same as we would eat a potato.
On to another pride and by now it was quite late in the afternoon so these aren't the best quality. This guy was looking quite miserable
As always there were grasses in the way and the second shot is out of focus but it's a sweet moment nevertheless.
I love the intense look on his face, perhaps he's about to pounce on this brother/cousin/twin.
Definitely a very expressionful face.
Flies in both eyes.
Final shot of the day.
It seems to us that Esther is very cat focussed and getting her to stop for anything else is quite difficult - still, we'll persist.