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.
way2blue
I asked Jonathan if we could look for birds on our last full morning in the Maasi Mara, so we headed out early toward the marsh.
Our tent was the last one along the upstream end of camp. There was a hippo path along the left side of the tent, and one did pass by—fortunately when I was inside…
View up the Mara River from our front porch.
View of the Mara River from the dining area of camp, with hippos doing hippo things accompanied by distinctive snorts & grunts.
View of a crocodile across the river from camp.
En route to the marsh, we crossed paths with the same lioness. Which made Jonathan happy, as big cats are apparently more exciting than birds…
Here she is posing…
And nearby—a frozen male impala, not daring to move a muscle…
A close-up via my binocular/phone zoom. (Apologies for the kludge to the BJ professional photographers who post to OTR.)
YY_Sima Qian
Camp site right by the Mara River, nice!
Never want to run into a hippo at night…
MazeDancer
That lioness is practically posing. Wonderful photo.
WaterGirl
@MazeDancer: “Can you turn your face a little to the left? Now tilt your chin up a tiny bit…”
Albatrossity
I feel your pain re the mammal-centric views of many in a land with amazing birds. One of the guys on our Tanzania trip seemingly could not get enough pictures of baboons. Every time we came across a baboon (or fifty) we had to stop and admire them, photograph them, and smell them. Meanwhile an African Hoopoe or a Bateleur would be visible about 100 yards down the road, and would disappear before he tired of baboon-gazing. Next day, same story.
jnfr
Hippo walking past the tent would freak me out entirely.
Betty
Both the lioness and antelope beneath a tree are beautiful shots.
Wag
Strike a pose! great shot
Mai Naem mobile
I wonder if the lions know they are what people come for and therefore do the poses.. You want birds in Kenya you go to Lake Naivasha for the flamingos. Amazing sight to see thousands of flamingos. IIRC the Kingfisher is the national bird of Kenya and the kingfishers there are really pretty looking birds.
Chat Noir
Big girl cat!
The picture from the tent to the river is really cool.
Albatrossity
@Mai Naem mobile: Flamingoes are large and colorful and stunning, but there are so many other amazing birds in East Africa. Including lots of kingfishers. But the national bird of Kenya is this guy – Lilac-breasted Roller.
YY_Sima Qian
@Albatrossity: You are right about the birds in sub-Saharan Africa, especially the kingfishers. My favorite is the Malachite Kingfisher.
JR in WV
I am kinda amazed that the binocular/phone camera works as well as it does. Some of the pics are a little blurry, but mostly just nicer than without the magnification.
Dunno how fond I would be of a camp near hippos.
Birds… you need a real tele lens for that to really work, mostly. WAY Jealous of that ~400mm Leica one of us shoots with!
Our tadpoles are doing great, have had at least 4 species of frogs reproduce to the tadpole stage so far this spring. Ferns are coming up too, local rain has really sped up the leaf production, from little shrubby wildflowers to the big canopy trees.
way2blue
@jnfr: Yep. Hippos look goofy. Maybe because my formative image of them is from the Disney film, Fantasia, where they dance in tutus to ‘Dance of the Hours’. But they’re mean & fast. (We ran twice from hippos on the walking safari… need to organize those photos.)
way2blue
@Mai Naem mobile: We did fly over Lake Naivasha, the flamingos clusters were stunning from the air.
way2blue
@YY_Sima Qian: Yes!