Tanzania 2014
Our first giraffe on the Serengeti Plains. It's thrilling to watch these towering animals amble along.
One of giraffes favorite foods is the leaves of Acacia trees. The tongue and lips of giraffes are so tough that they are impervious to the very sharp thorns on these trees.
Giraffes will average eating about 66 lbs of food a day. That's eating a lot of leaves.
We saw many adult lions playing with their cubs.
Here a cub plays with her father or a male member of the pride.
Female lions give birth 3.5 months after conception and usually have litters of 2-3.
Cubs play with each other, often practicing the skills they need to survive as adults.
For the first six weeks cubs are hidden in dense brush and nursed by their mothers and will continue to nurse up to 6 months.
The curiosity of young cubs leads them to grab onto anything that moves.
This cheetah is hiding in the grass using its keen eyesight to scan for prey.
Emerging from the grass this cheetah walked to within 10 feet of us in our Land Rover. You may know that cheetahs are fastest land mammals. They can go from 0 to 60 in 3 seconds.
Female cheetahs typically have litters of 3.
These rascals kept climbing all over their mother so I asked them to stop for a moment and pose for the camera. Thank you!
I did say "only a moment." Mothers take care of their young for 18 to 24 months.
We were thrilled to see this family looking healthy and having fun. Only 7,000 to 10,000 cheetahs remain in the wild.
Ouch! That's my ear you're chewing on. And watch the paw please.
When the mother ran away because of our presence, these three cubs began crying and didn't know what to do.
Eventually the 3 cubs wandered back into the grass and for certain momma returned with some food.
And what is this leopard doing? Oops, look again. This is a cheetah feasting on a gazelle.
Our tents and a beautiful acacia tree at Lake Masek Luxury Tented camp.
The evening sun casting beautiful light on Lake Masek as seen from our camp.
I was surprised to learn that giraffes can go without water for weeks and even several months. Usually they drink about 2 gals per week.
Would you like to be a giraffe? They only sleep about 20 minutes a day. Just think of the work you could get done.
We went hot air ballooning over the Serengeti Plains. You see our sister balloon in the distance.
A moment of tranquility -- the rising sun revealing the surface mist as we silently drifted above the Masi Mara.
Our skillful pilot brought us down to skim a meter or two above the earth to capture these three zebras disappearing into the mist.
The landing of our sister balloon.
Female lions are usually the hunters and they hunt in groups of 3 to 8.
Male lions wait for females to bring them food while they look after the cubs.
No she's not angry, just yawning.
Flies on the faces of lions is typical.
This female lion was returning to a kill she had made earlier.
And here she is eating the remains of a wildebeest.
These Grant's Gazelles were under a tree waiting for the rain to cease, as we were too (but not under a tree).
The broad expanse of a beautiful Acacia tree.
A fallen tree revealing its intricacies.
Giraffes can weigh from 1500 to 2600 lbs and can run up to 35 mph.
Grazing all day giraffes have 4 stomachs to help them digest their food.
Masai shephard watching over his flock of goats in the Ngorongoro crater.
Our guides reported that two leopards were spotted in a tree miles away. We raced through the flooded roads to get the opportunity to photograph them.
The young offspring of sleeping momma is active in the tree. Leopards have a gestation period of 92-95 days.
Leopards typically live about 21 years in the wild. They are the smallest of the 4 big cats -- the other cats being the lion, tiger, and jaguar.
Zebra are keen dust-bathers and often roll in the dirt, the purpose of which is thought to control parasites.
A young jackal popped out of his hole to greet us. Jackals are opportunistic omnivores, hunting in packs to eat small antelope like dik diks and gazelles.
We were in Tanzania in February which is the birthing season. Wildebeest were having their young in large numbers. Here a less than week old calf is nursing.
We watch this mother struggle to give birth to her calf over an hour period. You can see the legs are out.
