African Animals | Owen Slater Photography

Category: African Animals

Reticulated giraffe line-up, Ol Pejeta Conservancy, Kenya

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January 8, 2010

These giraffe all lined near the watering hole at the Ol Pejeta tented camp. The adult male was keeping the three females close to him as a younger male had also made his way to the watering hole and was interested in the females, but it wasn’t reciprocated. Their are three species of giraffe in Kenya, with the other two being the Maasai and the endangered Rothschild’s giraffe which is pretty much isolated to Lake Nakuru National Park in Kenya. It is estimated that giraffes sleep about 45 minutes a day and when a giraffe is born it falls about six feet to the ground!

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Seeing double, Reticulated giraffe, Ol Pejeta Conservancy

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This photo was just a matter of patience and timing. These two female reticulated giraffe had just finished drinking at the watering hole and were surveying the landscape. Everything from the mud on their feet to the position of their bodies matched up and made for an interesting photo.

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Leopard in Maasai Mara National Park

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December 2, 2009

As you can probably guess from these photos, I managed to get back to East Africa last month, specifically Kenya. The first part of the trip was for work as I was attending and instructing at the 2009 PASA (Pan African Sanctuary Alliance) Healthcare Workshop. Afterwards, I spent a week visiting Amboseli and Maasai Mara National Parks and went on numerous game drives. Over the next several weeks I will be posting the photos from my trip and brief stories about each one.

Although leopards are believed to be the most numerous of the big cats in Africa, they are very elusive and therefore, you have to be incredibly lucky to see one. Samburu National Park in Kenya is the best place to see leopard, but I wasn’t able to get a safari to Samburu this time. However, luck was still on my side, as this one was resting in a tree close to the road in the Maasai Mara. The foliage was very dense and initially all that I could see was a foot and a part of the tail, but after several minutes the leopard changed position and I was able to get this picture. After several minutes it climbed down the trunk and got a drink of water from the small stream below before returning to it’s vantage point in the tree. With it being the rainy season, the undergrowth was very dense and so all that we were able to see during this time were flashes of his spots moving amongst the vegetation. It was amazing to be able to see the leopard move without a sound and blend so well into it’s surroundings.

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Hyena on the prowl

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One of my favorite photos from the trip. This female spotted hyena and several others were observed during a night game drive at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy near Mount Kenya. She was initially laying down, but as we approached she slowly got up and walked past us on her way to what turned out to be a den site with many other adult hyenas and pups running around (photos to come in subsequent posts). The menacing shadow of the hyena makes this photo stand out to me and captures the perception of the hyena being a sinister night time predator.

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