Baby animals

On our African Safari we were fortunate to have timed it just right. Our arrival in September allowed us to see a few babies in the wild. This little Giraffe girl was less than three weeks old. Her umbilical cord was still hanging from her belly, these generally fall off at around three weeks old.

She was so cute, Tricia just fell in love with the Giraffes. Her fur looked like a Gund Teddy Bear fur. The first time we saw her, she was close by her mother. Our Ranger said that unless they are right with the mother, you generally can't find them as they are well camouflaged and will stay perfectly still to evade predators.

The Giraffe we saw are the Masai Giraffe. One of the interesting features of these Giraffe is that the older they get, the darker the coloring becomes. Compare these pictures with George from my last post. He is much darker than these Giraffe. Females have tufts of hair covering their horns, while the males quickly lose theirs by rubbing them on trees and bushes, and using them for fighting, being the macho boys that they are.

We also really decided that baby Rhino's are adorable. This little boy was only four or five weeks old when we were there. He stuck pretty close to mom, and eyed us with suspicion when we were around. His little button horn was cute, and he just was not too sure of our intentions as we watched him from about 30 feet away. Mom couldn't have cared less about our presence and just kept browsing.

During our time in South Africa, we had an amazing time. Animals all around everywhere. Tricia and I were in awe of everything we saw. We also found that not all of the people on Safari were as excited about seeing animals as we were. More than one of the people in our group and another group complained that they were tired of looking at animals all of the time. Hello, isn't that what you came here for? We saw so much, and yet all it did was whet our appetite for more. That is why we decided while we were there that we would return in September, 2009.

This time we are renting a four wheel drive at the airport in Johannesburg, and driving to the SanWild preserve near Kruger National Park for a week long wildlife rehabilitation course. When we are finished, we plan to drive to Kruger and spend at least one night in the Park, then drive south back to Kwazulu Natal province and spend three or four days at Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Park. Where we saw Lions on our first trip.