The A - Z April Challenge: B

My African Alphabet continues...

B is for Baboon

 Evening drives on the Serengeti are a magical event. The setting sun casts a golden glow on all it touches and we are priviliged to watch the animals make their preparations for night-time.

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 Baboon mothers round up their tired babes and climb into leafy nests high up in the trees. Others in the troop spend time grooming one another, an activity that not only keeps them clean and free of parasites, but

bonds the

individuals together as family.

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Males often take on the role of child-minder, exhibiting much patience with the youngsters who clamber boldly over them and tug at their ears. Nonetheless, these males are warriors and one must take care not to agitiate them.

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As light begins to fade, the last stragglers make their way to the trees to sleep. They must be up as dawn breaks to begin their long day's foraging once more....


 

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These Olive Baboons were one of my greatest challenges to photograph.

Although highly sociable in groups, they shy away from people and we may view them only from a distance.

For more A - Z letters, be sure to pop by Arlee Bird's site and see what other have done with the letter B!

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http://www.tossingitout.blogspot.com/2011/01/very-special-and-exciting-announcement.html

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And as it's Saturday, I will also link up with Misty Dawn's Camera Critters, another great meme to check out!

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http://camera-critters.blogspot.com/

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An African Morning

Morning comes gently to the African savannah. As the sun creeps up through the early haze, an abundance of wildlife begins to stir. Baboon troops clamber down from their treetop nests, yawning adults patiently bearing the frisky antics of youngsters eager to greet the day. Wildebeest and zebra quietly make their way along well-worn trails to the water hole; there to be joined by tawny gazelle whose dainty sips barely ripple the lambent surface.

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Stillness hangs in the air, broken only infrequently by questioning cries from the bush. Scattered dust casts the air in golden hues and pale amber grass flutters softly in the long morning shadows. Time stops in its track, as if to rest for the game of survival that will shape the remainder of the day. It is a time of magic - luminous, brief and radiantly beautiful.
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The first time I awoke on the African continent, I felt I had come home. From an early age, pictures of thorn trees at sunset, of lions and elephants, took my breath away and filled my heart with a longing that never left me. Time cemented my love of this land that beckoned with each passing year. It seemed I knew instinctively the breadth of its spacious grass lands, the deep blue sky stretching into infinity, even as I played on treeless streets caked gray with the residue of countless coal fires and factory smokestacks. Although a world removed from the dank, impoverished landscape of my Irish birth city, I knew I would one day seek this Africa of my dreams.

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