We had a number of game drives in Samburu, normally one in the morning and another one in the afternoon. It was so dry so the few lions that otherwise would roam around had withdrawn to the mountains surrounding the concession. Here I will show you some photos of impalas, baboons and other monkeys, did-diks (a tiny antelope), hyraxes and of course giraffes. I save the elephants to one of the following posts and also all the beautiful birds that we saw.
We saw lots of impalas. They are endemic to eastern and Southern Africa and is a medium sized antelope. We saw more of them in Masai Mara. Up to their shoulders they are between 70 to 90 centimetres tall. They live in herds consisting of females and babies and one male. And then there are bachelor herds of just males, who are waiting for their chance to be the dominating male with his own harem.
Only the males have horns and they use them to challenge each other. They are fast runners and can jump as far as 10 metres and up to 3 metres high! Quite impressive, isn’t it? They use those skills to get away from predators.
Giraffes live in groups (a tower of giraffes) of up to 20 giraffes. They are not territorial but roam around in areas large or small depending on how easily they can find water. They eat the leaves of the acacia tree, which were abundant in Samburu. They have a very rough and long tongue helping them to reach toe leaves. We felt that, when they stack out their tongues at us at Giraffe Manor, and we put treat on their tongues.
The females give birth to a single calf after a gestation period of around 15 months. The “baby girls” tend to stay in the tower of giraffes, while the boys leave after two years or so. Giraffes can run for several kilometres at a speed of 50 km/hour.
With the help of Daniel and Anne we spotted a hyrax in a tree. Hyraxes are small animals weighing between two to five kg. Their closest relatives are the elephants, which sounds quite improbable, when you compare the sizes, but both species (and the manatee) descend from the same group of mammals. Last time I saw a hyrax was in Namibia ten years ago – the rock hyraxes – and I enclose a couple of images below from Namibia as well.
Baboons are some of the world’s largest monkeys. They live in the savanna and other semi-arid habitats. They spend much of their time on the ground, but they often sleep and eat in trees. They live in large troops, sometimes consisting of up to a hundred baboons. We saw both baboons and other types of monkeys, when we ventured out on our drives.
The dik-diks are small dwarf antelopes living in dry, arid land in eastern and Southern Africa. They are between 30 – 40 cm in height at the shoulders. They live in monogamous pairs and is one of the very few grazing species that does that. Most other species live in herds. Only the males have horns. They are very shy and difficult to photograph. They are called did-diks because of the sound they make when they are alarmed. They whistle through their noses as they run away.
