Initial photos

I'm on a really slow PC and trying to sort through my almost 4 GB worth of photos is proving daunting, so I'm going to wait until I get back to Boston. For now I've uploaded a couple of the better photos that I could quickly extract. These are unedited raw photos for now.

To the left is one of the younger chimps balancing on a couple of jungle vines. This chimp had been swinging along in the jungle and then came to rest here and I watch him/her for a bit. The chimp just seemed to be contemplating life in a moment of deep thought. If I can, I'll try and get the Mahale staff to ID the chimp and then I can upload some info about him/her as they sent me brief background sentences on each chimp in the group.

This is a shot of the male lion in Ruaha eating the giraffe. This was taken in the morning of my last day there, so is about 22 hours after the kill was made. If you look closely you can see that the lion is gripping the hip / upper thigh area of the carcass with both forepaws and pulling with his teeth. He has extended his right front claws for a better grip (like domestic cats lions claws are retractable). You can also see that the entire body cavity of the giraffe is empty and the ribs are clearly visible here. Although it is difficult to see in a photo, I hope that this conveys some of the power combined with grace that these animals have.

More photos will be posted in about one week's time as I should have a better PC and connectivity then. Feel free to add your comments in the meantime.