For me, one of the toughest African animals to photograph was the hippopotamus. These large (1-2 tons) creatures spend most of their day in the water, coming out at night to feed. Two items of interest conveyed by our guide: 1) Hippos are easily sunburned and 2) they are closely related to whales. Neither of those facts seem terribly surprising to me after having watched them for several days.
We saw hippopotami in both South Africa and Botswana. In the Okavango Delta we were surrounded by water and did all our traveling by boat and foot. There we saw large groups of hippos, all exhibiting their characteristic warnings that look to us like great big yawns.
I suspect the warnings were directed primarily at each other - a way of saying stay out of my space - rather than at us as we tried to stay far enough away from the animals to avoid stressing them.
There were quite a few baby hippos at the Hippo Pool we visited near our lodge in Botswana. In the shot above three youngsters stick close to a large adult.
Even the babies got in the act. The bottom teeth look very sharp and dangerous. It is amazing that these guys are vegetarians.
One afternoon Ken and I took a hike at Londalozi during siesta time. We just happened to look toward the river in time to see this lone hippo, below, moving from one pool to another. I only had my small lens with me but I was happy to have at least one shot of a hippopotamus out of the water!
In this final shot you can see a dozen hippos in the water while a fish eagle watches from a nearby tree.
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