About Me

My photo
Hello! Welcome to my online travel-food-life journal/virtual scrapbook. I am a poet, playwright, journalist, editor and basic jack-of-all-trades writer. I was born in El Salvador and raised in Minnesota. I have just returned home from a year and a half in South Africa.

15 December 2011

Kgalagadi: Jackal, Hyena, and other four footed friends ...

We're almost there!  Second-to-last Kgalagadi post ... and today we're doing the remaining mammals ...

First up, adorable ground squirrels:


Then we have Aaron's favorite, the Black-backed Jackal:


These guys are gorgeous and very plucky.  You see them trotting along everywhere:









Here are the Spotted Hyenas:


Or as my dad calls them, the "horrible, horrible animals."  Ha ha!

When I told him where we were going, he said, "Oh, I hope you don't see those horrible animals."

"Which ones?" I asked.

"Oh you know," he said, "The ones that look horrible, and make horrible 'he, he, he' sounds, they act horrible and they eat horrible things ..."


I don't know if it's fair to categorize them as "horrible."  But I'll tell you what, they don't like to share their food, even with their own kids:



 

And when this one looked straight at us, it was the only time in the whole week of being in the Kgalagadi that I actually felt afraid.  The look he/she gave us was absolutely chilling:


Here is the only sighting of meerkats we had:


Have a hard time seeing them?  Yeah, us too!

A yellow mongoose:


A whole family of Cape Fox:


And finally, last but not least, an adorable striped mouse:

No comments:

Post a Comment