Robin's Adventures

African Safari
African Adventures 2011

The hyena babies go exploring in this video.

After a full morning of very incredible game viewing, we decided to stop for lunch. It would turn out to be the best lunch break ever. We brought a picnic to eat in the car and our guide, Peter, found a nice spot near a large plain covered with tall grass. He said there was a lion in the distance and maybe if we were lucky we would see the lion in action.

Shortly after we began to eat, a lone gazelle who had been grazing started to act very skittish and we could see a lion crouching and slowly stalking the gazelle.

We watched the drama unfold for quite a while and shot some video of the event. Through the magic of video editing, you can watch the highlights of this 30 minute drama in less than a minute!

The lion turned out to be very inexperienced at stalking because he was so young and there was a happy ending for the gazelle who bounded off to safety.

Then, out of the bush, came four juvenile male lions. According to Peter, they looked to be about 8 months old. Tired of "playing" with the gazelle, they decided to check out our vehicle.

Perhaps these cubs had not heard that curiosity kills the cat. They bounded up to our vehicle and began to check it out with great enthusiasm. If we had rolled down the windows, we could have reached out and touched the lions.

As we hung out the pop top taking photos, they looked up at us with beautiful green eyes. One lion, as seen in the sideview mirror, decided to take a nap in the shade under our car. Another began to lick the tires.

Soon they sat down next to our car and began to groom.

Check out the video highlights of the grooming lion cubs.

Africa had an amazing variety of birds everywhere that we went. As bird watchers from back in our college days, we were now intrigued by the new and diverse types of birds that we saw. Here are a couple of large birds with interesting crowns: the African crowned stork and the secretary bird.

There were many very colorful birds. Among our favorites were the red and yellow barbet, the yellow barbet, the superb starling, the lilac breasted roller, the grey headed kingfisher, the oriole, and Fischer's lovebird.

Other birds were black and white. We saw the sacred ibis, the blacksmith plover, the crowned plover, the pied kingfisher, and the pied wagtail.