The most exciting animal sightings for us are not usually the
ones that have tourists jumping up and down. Given that we study hyenas that
might seem kind of obvious! But also, living here allows us, or at least has
allowed me, to look beyond the large, majestic animals to the smaller, shyer,
or rarer ones. I now always get really excited when we see rare animals such as
unusual birds or shy, small mammals. Most of these animals I did not know even
existed until a few months ago.
Recently, I had my best serval sighting yet. Servals are medium sized, spotted cats with large ears. They use their ears to pick up sounds made by birds, rodents, and other potential prey. Servals can even hear noises made by their prey underground! Their long legs help them reach deep into holes and pull out their prey. At the same time, servals can jump high into the air and bat down birds!
The serval we saw was walking along a track in one of the marshy
areas of our North territory. She or he was very calm and just let us follow
her along the track for a few minutes. She paused for a bit and drank from a
puddle before moving off into the tall grass and out of sight. I always feel so
privileged to have such wonderful sightings of these more unusual or shyer
animals.
3 comments:
I love servals! Great photos!
Nice pictures Maggie !
Wow amazing shots, Maggie!!
Post a Comment