Camouflage and hiding!

Visitors to  will sometimes say they do not  SEE many animals. The bush is quite thick, even though it is the end of winter. It is amazing how quickly animals can disappear. See how difficult it is to spot this baby kudu:

Every morning at 6 O'clock I drive to a photographic hide that were recently built. It is a bunker type hide, so one sit inside with your eyes level with the ground and waterhole. One morning I saw a leopard here, but he disappeared too quickly for a photograph.  There are other hides here, high up in the air. It was suggested I go and spend a night in one of them, but what if an elephant comes rubbing against the hide? Not alone, no, I do not think I can do that!

Zebras - does their stripes camouflage them?

The wavy lines of a zebra blend in with the wavy lines of the tall grass around it. It doesn't matter that the zebra's stripes are black and white and the lines of the grass are yellow, brown or green, because the zebra's main predator, the lion, is colourblind. The stripes also help to break up the outline of the animal, which confuses the lion.

Zebras usually travel in large groups, in which they stay very close to one another. Even with their camouflage pattern, it's highly unlikely a large gathering of zebras would be able to escape a lion's notice, but their stripes help them use this large size to their advantage. When all the zebras keep together as a big group, the patte­rn of each zebra's stripes blends in with the stripes of the zebras around it. This is confusing to the lion, who sees a large, moving, striped mass instead of many individual zebras.

Note that the front Zebra is heavily pregnant.

Bye, till next time!