On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Today is a repeat of last Friday, this time with all the photos that are supposed to be there on Friday :-) plus I have added in the 3 pictures that were missing from the first Kenya post. We will finish out the week with posts #4-6 from this wonderful Kenya trip!
Tech note: HEIC photos are not a file type allowed by the OTR form, which is why some of the images were missing.
way2blue
Continuation of our trek to see the wildebeest migration…
The mother would move the 3 Simba cubs from day to day—hiding them whenever she went on walkabout. July 16, 2021
The Swahili word for zebra apparently means ‘striped donkey’. The Masi burn the savanna to encourage fresh grass which the Plains zebra quite enjoy. Zebra were my second favorite Kenyan mammal, after Dik Dik and before Wart Hogs…
On the way back to camp, someone had spotted a leopard which then became surrounded by jockeying vehicles. But s/he obliged for a binocular/phone photo.
The nickname for this antelope is ‘blue jeans; yellow socks’.
Another male lion. This one saying ‘take your photo & leave me in peace’…
Cape buffalo also move in herds, but are slow to react when approached by a vehicle.
A group of female impala (I assume) given the lack of horns…
Another bird for Albatrossity… Another binocular/phone set-up, so resolution is poor. Jonathan would look through his ‘Birds of East Africa’ guide, but my notes just say ‘eagle’. So hopefully someone can provide the name—my guess is a ‘snake-eagle’.
My ecologist son asked for photos of unusual trees…
And here is what he was photographing—a litter of Simba cubs with their mom.
The muddy roads caused some mishaps. Here we stopped to help pull another vehicle out of a muddle…
Benw
Wow that leopard!
Betty
The tree photo is iconic. So Serengeti.
WaterGirl
Quick note: I checked the OTR form and there are 5 descriptions with no images, which means that even the descriptions for those images don’t show up. If way2blue can get me the images ASAP, i can add them in, so maybe check back in later today to see the whole set of 8?
Or I may just run this post again on another day.
Elma
When I went to Southern Africa, our Guide told us that the animals are accustomed to and ignored the vehicles. They don’t perceive the crazy people in the vehicles as they would a person walking on two feet. I don’t know if that is true; but the animals didn’t seem to be disturbed by all the trucks converging on them anytime one of the guides announced on the radio a sighting of something interesting.
YY_Sima Qian
@Elma: Certainly true in Botswana & Zimbabwe. I have had leopards strolling w/in 2 m of the open sided jeep, & prides of lions & herds of elephants w/in 5 m. I was really nervous the 1st couple of encounters.
Ruckus ??
Now that is a cat.
Need a pretty big house if you are going to share living quarters with that one.
eclare
What a leopard! Congrats, it is rare to see those. The only one we saw was in a tree.
way2blue
@eclare: There was a guy at our camp who came for two weeks every year—apparently wanting to see cheetah mating. But I was told we weren’t in cheetah habitat. So don’t know what that was about…
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
When we were in Nagorogoro crater, the lions used the Toyota Land Cruisers as shade providers and lay down literally next to the trucks. The guides had a hard time making everyone keep all parts of their bodies inside the truck ( no dangling your hand down to get a better picture!)
ETA: I am jealous of your leopard sighting!
Dan B
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): Reminds me of our day trip from Dubli to Mount Stewart, a great home and immense garden near Belfast. This was in the 80’s. One our party took a picture of the sign at the border, No Photographs!. It included the teenage guys with machine guns. The mindset seems to be, This is like Disneyland crossed with first world oblivious on steroids.
We survived.
Spanky
I thought they were marked that way naturally.
lowtechcyclist
@Spanky:
That one was all teed up and waiting for someone. :-)
zhena gogolia
Beautiful photographs. How beautiful the landscape is.
Albatrossity
Nice! Pretty sure that is a Black-chested Snake-Eagle (Circaetus pectoralis). They are widespread in TZ at least
Steve in the ATL
Normally I hate reruns but these are fantastic
WaterGirl
@Steve in the ATL: Only 3 of the 11 are re-runs the other 8 are new!
I guess that makes all the difference. :-)
Tenar Arha
Good shots of those lion cubs, still love that leopard, & the tree
way2blue
@Dan B: Oh. I drove with my boyfriend from Ireland to Belfast in the late 1970s. Of course, he being 6’4″, red hair & beard (Irish + Swedish heritage) got pulled out of our little car at the border. Sandbags & young guys with impressive firearms…
way2blue
@Spanky: Ha! Thanks for the morning laugh…