Photograph Works

When Tamara and I were on the Eastern Cape in South Africa last September, I photographed quite a few Red Hartebeest.

By and large they were pretty cool and undisturbed. I shot this with a pretty long lens, but still we saw hartebeest that stayed closer than other animals when we encountered them.

Although they may not look it, Red hartebeest are antelopes. That is, they are even-toed ungulates, which is one of the characteristics that indicate they are antelopes, and within the Bovidae family. That puts them in the same family along with sheep, goats and cattle.

We never got over how very alien they look with their long, long faces. Quite the most unusual animal we saw.

I posted a photo back in January of an adult with its young. The young animal is just crazy lovely.

I almost didn’t take a photo of the female lion drinking because I was shocked by how she was down on her haunches. I forgot for a moment that lions don’t have to worry who is near them because they are not prey animals. We were used to seeing antelope and zebra, who stand nervously when they drink, ready to take flight at the slightest disturbance. Lions can relax and drink however they like.