This picture show an African male adult giraffe bonding with 2 juvenile giraffe by touching and one young male laying his head across the back of the other, all the while standing in a, lush green meadow. Those are Red Billed Oxpeckers seen on giraffes, devouring ticks and other parasites. These 3 giraffe are part of a small, loose herd which has just meandered left to right across the meadow to the river.
This picture was taken while based at Duba Plains. Duba Plains is one of the Okavango Delta's most remote camps and is located in the furthermost reaches, north of the Moremi Wildlife Reserve. The camp is built on an island shaded by large ebony, fig and mangosteen trees and surrounded by expansive plains which are seasonally flooded.
Dereck and Beverly Joubert, the world renowned husband and wife wildlife documentary team, spent two years amongst the prides of lions and a large buffalo herds at Duba Plains Camp filming Relentless Enemies: Lions and Buffalo, for National Geographic.
The Okavango Delta is rightly considered one of the most incredible wildlife and wilderness sanctuaries in Africa. It is the largest inland delta system in the world, an area of about 6000 square miles making a mosaic of grasslands, floodplains, palm-tree islets, forests, lily lagoons and winding water channels combine to form a perfectly constructed puzzle, in which animals wander as they please. What makes this area most remarkable is that it is a wetland paradise located deep within the arid Kalahari Desert. The Okavango is Africa's largest and most beautiful oasis. The water of the Okavango literally floats on a saturated sea of sand. |