Out of the Jurisdiction: Some Animals of East Africa

I could show photographs from my recent trip to East Africa for weeks, but I suppose the idea of this blog in summertime is to show Hartford and its environs.   Before I get back on topic, though, 

I will offer a sample of animals I saw in Kenya and Tanzania.

I have seen many zebras before, but the number seen in East Africa was staggering.  Thousands. 

They are everywhere.  Usually with their buddies and migration partners, the wildebeests.

Crowned cranes are beautiful birds.

I thought that baboon grooming behavior was in part social and in part to get rid of ticks.

On this trip I learned that salt crystals form on a baboon's back and the one doing

the grooming is also searching for some salt to eat.

We saw three or four leopards, but they were quite far away.  The only way I was able to take 

this so-so photograph of a leopard was to use a big zoom lens and then crop heavily.

This pair of Cape buffalo offered a side view and a front view.

We saw cheetahs quite close.  This cheetah -- which is wearing a collar with GPS to enable researchers to track her movements -- was one of five cheetahs stalking a herd of wildebeest.

I took many photos of the cheetahs taking down a young wildebeest.  Even though

 predator attacks are part of nature out on the savannah, and carnivorous animals do 

need to eat, the images are a bit grim so I have decided not to show them here. 

Elephants are fascinating to watch.

We visited two hippo pools with forty or more hippos packed in tightly together.  Pretty gross.

OK, Connecticut tomorrow.