Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park

Zambia has a small National Park on the outskirts of Livingstone.  It carries the same name as the native name for Victoria Falls, Mosi-oa-Tunya.  It has a variety of animals but none are preditors except man so the animals here are pretty safe.  One of the attractions at this park are the White Rhinos (The name is derived from their wide mouth not their color.  At some point instead of saying wide it got changed to white.)  We scheduled an event that they call Rhino Walk.  So off we went to see the Rhinos.  We left Chanters Lodge in an interesting old Toyota pickup with our guide, Arnold, and Robert the driver.  We entered the park and drove until we picked up our armed guard who would guide us to where the Rhinos would be found.  They are guarded 24 hours a day and 7 days a week as there is so much poaching in Africa for Rhino horns and Elephant tusks.

While driving to pick up the guard we came across this Waterbuck.  The pictue does not show the description that the guide gave us of the back end of this animal.  He said it looks like a white toilet seat that provides identifcation of whom to follow when they are running from preditors.

 

 

When we stopped to "pick" the guard we moved to the back of the truck so we could better view the animals.

 

 

After driving a short distance we  parked the truck and headed through the brush with strict instructions to follow closely behing our guides and follow their footsteps for our safety.

 

 

Our first encounter was with the zebras.  They were shy.  Their stripes are identification like fingerprints are for us.  The young quickly memorize their mother's stripe pattern.

 

 

We wandered around for awhile being taught which animal had left their dung and whether the animal was male or female, alone or in a group.  Aronold also taught us about the various trees and shrubs and their uses by both natives and animals. Some of the trees even have a defense mechanism to prevent the animals from eating all of their leaves.

 

 

Then we quietly came upon three, female rhinos and two male calves. 

 

 

The bigger baby was an orphan that the mother of the younger calf  had adopted and was nursing with her own calf.  Female rhinos are picky about their mate and will not conceive with a dominate male she is not in love with.  The dominate male, and father of the younger calf, recently died.  So far these females have not accepted the new dominate male. 

 

 

Their poor eyesight mades it possible to get pretty close. Their hearing is very good and they follow the sound of footsteps, so we were cautioned to not move quickly or loudly.

 

 

Arnold had brought scones (biscuits), muffins and drinks for a picnic lunch close to the Zambesi River.....but not too close as crocodiles were known to be very plentiful near the water.  The bird is the pied king fisher.

 

 

After lunch Arnold went out of his way to make sure we saw giraffes. We were fortunate to get such a close up view of them.

 

 

Earlier we had seen a bachelor herd, but they were far away.  This group were females with a calf. 

Females grow hair on the top of their horns, the males do not.

 

 

Before leaving the park we passed a herd of cape buffalo and more zebras.  These animals co-exist very comfortably together.  We thank Arnold and Robert for such an enjoyable morning adventure.