| This small herd (partly captured) of about 50 wildbeests (well small by wildbeest heard standards) was grazing and slowly moving towards the woods. The event happens on a much grander scale in the Serengeti plains of Tanzania every year where about 1.5 million wildebeests migrate to the Masai Mara reserve in Kenya for food, making it the largest land-mammal migration on the planet. Wildbeests (specially the young ones) are prime targets for lions, leopards and cheetahs so this antelope (even though it looks like some horse and cow mix) derives strength from its vast numbers. About 80-85% of all females give birth within a 10-12 day period in the herd gathering, unlike all other antelope species where females give birth in seclusion. Newborns can stand up and run within a matter of minutes and can run fast enough to keep up with the herd within 3-4 days; they almost have to in order to survive since predators will target the ones that are even marginally slow. On a different note, this photoblog is two years old today and incidentally this is the 365th post, averaging my post rate to exactly 50%. Not great by any means and I'll try to better that going forward. Hopefully you guys have had fun here and will keep coming back, I certainly have enjoyed the ride so far and am very thankful for all your comments (2535 as of today's post) and support. Much appreciated! |
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