Some images from my third and last 'safari' into game reserves and parks of South Africa. No lions or elephants, leopards or cheetahs in this one. But a profusion of antelopes, zebras, birds, hippos and rhinos. A whole elegant 'tower' of giraffes swayed by, and observed us curiously with their huge, lash fringed eyes, chewing their cud and browsing delicately on trees and shrubs. All giraffes have two 'free-floating' fuzzy hornlets, which are not attached to their skulls, the males have an extra prominent bump on their foreheads.
Herds of Kudus, Springbok, Blessboks and Wildebeest (gnus) grased serenely on the hillsides. It had rained a little after a long draught, and there was just a hint of green amongst the trees and bushes.
The largest of all antelopes, the Eland, which reaches a couple of tons in weight was lead by a prime specimen, which looked more like a Brahmin bull with long horns, instead of an antelope.
The difference between Antelopes and other deer is, that antelope never lose their horns, but deer and their relatives lose them each season.
There were a couple of Nyalas, another large antelope with impressive horns reaching more than 6 feet of length. The male looks shaggy haired and almost black, and the female (bare headed) wears a cinnamon brown coat, both male and female are decorated with a few light coloured vertical stripes - very attractive.
Zebras are always a joy to watch. Mother zebras take their newborn away from the herd for the first couple of weeks after giving birth, to give the kid time to learn the unique stripe pattern of its mother, so it learns which one amongst all the striped girls is the one with the food supply.
How can one differentiate male and female zebras, without inspecting the underside of their bellies? The rear end stripes of a female fade out in a way, around their tail region. The male wears a 'g-string', a strongly coloured stripe arrangement which surrounds and slips under his tail like a very tiny panty.
We got up very close to a mother White Rhinoceros accompanied by her four year old son. They looked rather intimidating, with nothing but a bit of canvas between us (in a jeep) and their double horns a few yards away. But, they must have felt quite bored with us. The youngster, three years beyond nursing age, tried to suckle his mother, which is a little complicated with his large horns protruding from his nose. So mother accommodated her 'mama's boy' offspring, laid down on her side to facilitate nursing, and son laid down as well and suckled his way into rhino heaven. The guide was mortified and surprised - she had never seen anything like it. There is no male around the reserve at this time, so females are not pregnant and may prolong their mothering business in this unusual way.
The hippos in one of the water holes showed nothing buth the very tip of their nostrils, keeping cool under water until dusk. Then they come out and wander around and graze, sometimes walking miles to another waterhole where they may spend the next hot day. They main and kill more humans than the other 'big five' combined, i.e. lion, leopard, rhino and water buffalo. The buffalo is no mean foe either, very strong, very quick and absolutely unpredictable. He may look at you, chewing his cud, and then he may freak out and trample you to death. Apparently they don't stop their attack, until the victim has been turned to mush.
The waterhole in this game reserve gave hundreds of geese, ducks, ibis, herons, kormorants, song birds and even turtles a safe and beautiful home. Some trees bore hundreds of weaver bird nests.
There is a bush with pale yellow, somewhat fuzzy transluscent blooms/fruit by the name of Milkweed. The local name for it, however, is Old Man's Balls.
As we have descended to barroom humor anyway, here is another piece of trivia: Ostriches are one bird, where the male actually has a penis...
Well, enough of biology lessons....
