We loved watching several groups of hippopotamuses (Hippopotamus amphibius) whilst in Tanzania and although they spent a lot of time just resting almost completely submerged at the surface of the water, when they were a little more active, they certainly seemed to be enjoying themselves. A common pastime included what looked like play fighting such as in these two shots here. Hippopotami love the water, (hence the latin ‘amphibius’) and spend most of their days in pools, rivers, swamps and mangroves etc. but come nightfall they head ashore to graze and will feed for several hours before dawn ..read more

This is a sub-species of ‘Plains’ zebra known as ‘Grant’s’ Zebras (Equus quagga boehmi), they are the smallest, but most abundant of the three types of zebra (Plains, Grevvy’s and Mountain) found in Africa. They are regularly seen sleeping in this formation, sometimes numbering several animals supporting each other. The primary reason is for safety in numbers – this makes them look bigger which will help to confuse potential predators. Also, sleeping like this enables one of them to always be awake so as to alert the others if danger approaches and by sleeping stood up, they are ready to take ..read more

Here’s a young ‘Nile’ Crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus) and although many miles from the River Nile, this genus of crocodile is commonly found in Eastern and Southern Africa (the smaller West Africa crocodile is found in the West of the continent). Not ones to be trifled with, these guys have a fearsome reputation for aggression and stealthy attacks on prey (including humans) and they will often wait several days for the right moment to strike. This youngster is doing really well as only ten percent of laid eggs are estimated to survive to hatching and only one percent of those hatchlings are ..read more

The throes of winter are fighting hard to stick around in Newfoundland right now, but slowly and surely it is being beaten back. Part of the arsenal of getting over winter is the expectation and anticipation of what is to come. One of the things many people are looking forward to is the arrival of the Atlantic puffins back at their nesting colonies on some of the rocky outcrops around the coast of the island. Hopefully within the next five weeks or so we’ll start to see the first arrivals of these little birds – who will quickly get to work cleaning and restocking their burrows ready for thei ..read more

Several people have asked me about or for elephant pictures since before I went away, so here’s a little teaser to be getting on with. This little guy was a character and thought to be no more than two weeks old at the time of our encounter. He certainly didn’t stay tucked under mums legs very often and would head off on little ‘mini’ adventures a few feet away, so there are a couple of stories of him and his herd to come but for now I hope you enjoy this little peek ..read more

We came across several different lion prides throughout our trip and here we see a nice tight portrait of a female sitting high in a tree overlooking her surroundings, just starting to wake up from resting the afternoon away (see below). She could have been a lookout for potential danger, but more likely she was probably just trying to get a bit of peace for her nap. In the shade below the tree was her small pride of several more lions – a couple of other adult females and four or five playful youngsters. Whilst the adults were doing their best for a last bit of shut-eye before sunset, the cu ..read more

My recent field trip to Africa and Europe included a visit to Tenerife in the Canary Islands and this enabled me to get out on the water and see my first whales of the year – pilot whales. Tenerife was the first ‘World Heritage Site’ for whales in the Northern Hemisphere and is presently one of only ten on the entire planet. I did feature some pilot whales I came across once in Nova Scotia back in 2021, they were ‘Long-finned Pilot Whales’. The sub-species found in the warm waters of Tenerife are known as ‘Tropical Pilot Whales’ or more correctly ‘Short-finned Pilot Whales’ (Globicephala macr ..read more

Whilst in Tanzania we only across some of these little guys (they stand about half a metre tall) on our first day in Arusha NP. Although he may appear a ‘greeny-grey’ colour in this light, this is a Blue Monkey (Cercopithecus mitis) (also known as a Diademed Monkey). They often live high in the overhead canopy so can be hard to photograph. Fortunately, when we spotted some through the foliage lower down, they were quite accommodating and didn’t spook too readily as the vehicle came to a sudden stop. In fact this guy pretty much just carried on eating his lunch whilst posing for photos ..read more

I came across this Giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis) mum and calf in an area known as the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, right at the Southern end of the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. This young calf is approximately 4-6 weeks old – at birth it would have stood with its head around the top of mums leg. Talking of standing, baby giraffes can actually stand almost immediately after being literally ‘dropped’ on to the ground at birth, yes mums give birth standing up. Whilst they are small like this, they are of course extremely vulnerable to attack from larger predators such as cheetahs and ..read more

A young male lion (Panthera leo) keeps a watchful eye whilst others rest, notice there is also one sleeping inside the hollowed out log. We were fortunate to watch these guys for quite some time from a couple of different viewpoints. There were five around in total, including mum, who is resting behind him, but a couple had abandoned the log for a view from a nearby grassy mound ..read more