More Pictures of African Animals

I wanted to post some more of the animals that we saw when we went to Kruger Park for the rhino rescue. We couldn't photograph them all of course but Frank tried to keep track of all of the things we saw--21 different kinds of birds and 31 mammals. It's pretty amazing to see creatures in the wild that you've only seen in zoos or in National Geographic magazines!

For this picture I photoshopped the giraffes onto a shot of the sunset I took about the same time.

Kudus have beautiful twisted horns; we saw quite a few of these

This Steenbock is very tiny; less that two feet tall. 

Pumba and his friend; he didn't introduce us. There is quite a size difference between the males and females.

There were so many beautiful birds, but they are difficult to get a good shot of. This one is a African Grey Hornbill.

And some creatures are beautiful wherever they are found on the globe. 

 Water buffalo--they are very seldom seen alone so since this guy was all by himself, our guide said that he has probably passed his useful breeding years and been expelled from the group. 

This bird is gorgeous, but hard to tell from the shot. The name is pretty too--it's a Lilac-breasted Roller.

 The Bushbuck is similar to the Kudu, but notice the curved back horns and the "target" around his rump.

 We saw lots of zebras; many had babies.

 This is a slim mongoose, but the picture has some debris in that makes him look like he has a white tail; it looked like a mystery animal.  

Hippopotamus--do you want one for Christmas? There were plenty.

 Blue Wildabeeast--these used to exist in the millions, but the numbers are much diminished; a lot like the American Buffalo.

 Crocodile on the bank waiting to eat you--you notice not of these shots are close up except maybe the butterfly. You aren't allowed to get out your vehicle in Kruger Park. A lot of things would consider you for a very pleasant "different" kind of dinner.

A Leopard Tortoise which is one of the "little five"

A very big male elephant who you would not want to get close to. He had been spraying himself with water so he looks multi-colored. 

It's odd to see these huge ant hills or termite hills everywhere. A lot of small mammals live in them. Some of these can be almost as tall as trees.

 These little impalas are the most plentiful animal. These two are having a dispute about something. There are so many animals in the deer family in the park--about 20--that some of the other missionaries were just calling everything DLA's (deer like animals :)

 You'll notice that the grass is all dry and brown in the pictures--that is the best time to see the animals because they can't hide so well, but you can definitely see that they are still able to camouflage. I'm sure there were a lot of animals that we didn't see that certainly saw us.

For example, would you notice the giraffe if you were driving by?