A newborn South African Giraffe is ~1.8m (~6ft) tall. After a few hours of birth, the calf can run and is almost indistinguishable from a one-week-old.
Mothers with calves will often gather in nursery herds. In such a groups they may sometimes leave their calves with one female while they forage and drink elsewhere. This is known as a “calving pool”.
Have a pleasant weekend!
#Christiansperkaphotography @christiansperkaphotography #thandasafari @thandasafari
I have started featuring a species per week on my social media channels. Here is a summary of the last week’s posts (and some blog bonus images). I hope you enjoy some of my favorite Giraffe pictures :-).
The pictures were taken at various locations in South Africa.
#Christiansperkaphotography @christiansperkaphotography
Herbivores sometimes consume bone material. This is called Osteophagy. Chewing bones allows animals to supplement phosphorus and calcium.
The body of the Giraffe needs this mineral and this metal to maintain the bone structure and help with many biological processes including energy metabolism, protein synthesis, and lactation.
So if you see a Giraffe chewing a bone it does not mean it has turned into a carnivore, it just takes supplements!
#GiraffeChewing #ThandaGiraffe ##thandasafari @thandasafari ##christiansperkaphotography @christiansperkaphotography
I have just uploaded 159 South African Giraffe images taken between 2002 and 2016. Have a look at http://www.sperka.biz/sg15
This is another new species gallery available online at http://www.sperka.biz/sg
Please contact me at info@sperka.com in case you are interested in publishing any of these images or if you would like to license any image for printing (for personal or commercial use).
Last weekend I was very busy in the office and teaching photography at Thanda. On Monday I went to Pongola to get my car serviced and for a short visit to Pakamisa. On Tuesday and Wednesday I ran errands in Durban where a met a very cute puppy dog. Yesterday and today I played again catch-up in the office.
But, I still got a bit of photography done. At Pakamisa I took some pictures of Isabella working with one of her horses and at the Thanda House Waterhole (next to my home) I got some good pictures of Elephants, of Giraffes and of a young Lioness. I also shot some good-bye pictures of our young male Lion, who will leave the reserve soon for a new home. And in between I posted one of my favorite Leopard shots (taken in 2006) on Facebook.
So, here is my week in pictures. Enjoy them and the weekend 🙂
PS: As a bonus I added a short Thanda Elephants video – four times the regular speed!
A journey of Giraffe (8 in total) were crossing the road in front of my home, just as I was approaching. I waited patiently for these graceful giants to move on before I passed through the gate to Thanda House.
An African Bush Portrait – Baby Giraffe
These are three of my favorite images I took during another great stay at Pongola Game Reserve.
I usually do not manipulate my images except to ‘restore’ them to what I recall as the best representation of what I actually saw. This normally includes the adjustment of color, brightness, contrast, sharpness and some minor cloning and makeup work.
This picture is an exception. It is a merger of four images of a female Giraffe raising her head after she was finished drinking. An interesting study 🙂
