South African wildlife - Impala

i-30e706b81113457fe984f4370608f75b-Impala_sunset.jpg

There's nothing like going on safari, rounding a corner in your open-top jeep and catching a glimpse of your first wild animals. Which will almost certainly be impala. Much camera-clicking, oohing and aahing ensues.

Three days later... you have seen enough impala for a lifetime. They are everywhere. Sometimes, you'll drive for an hour, see nothing at all, catch a glimpse of movement, hurry towards it only to find yet another herd of impala. You start to resent the impala for not being something more interesting, for deigning to be commonplace when they could be, say, hunting dogs. You start trying to mentally will the impala to head in the direction of the leopard you just drove past mere moments ago.

Which is obviously completely unfair, because common though impala are, they are still strikingly beautiful animals.

i-e2bede14f67c9e9b941c321403fd855c-Impala_closeups.jpg

i-b0d81d4567937116a7dce7a10803f50b-South-Africa_166.jpg

More like this

On the fifth day of this year, I found myself sitting in the living room of the legendary Sir David Attenborough, drinking coffee and talking to him about wildlife, filmmaking and his career for the better part of an hour. It was a truly memorable experience, not just for his eloquence and…
Every so often, just for laughs or my own personal edification, periodically I check my referral logs to see who's linking to me and what posts are being linked to. Most of the time, there's not much there worth commenting on. Sometimes, it's bloggers who agree with me; other times, it's bloggers…
Female Snow Leopard twins born last year at the Bronx Zoo. When I initially started posting pictures on my blog, I didn't know if anyone would have anything to say about my pictures. I frequent zoos, museums, and aquariums, usually shooting between 200 and 600 shots per trip, the handful of good…
"The very closest stars would require many years to visit, even traveling at the speed of light, which is impossible according to Einstein's theory of relativity. Today's fastest spaceships would require 200,000 years to travel to Alpha Centauri, our closest bright star. The energy required to send…

My wife and I went driving in the mountains around Banff looking for wildlife. We had just about given up hope, and were driving back, came around a bend and found 3 male bighorn sheep casually walking up the road.

By mrcreosote (not verified) on 06 Dec 2009 #permalink

LMAO Ed this article was funny! Were your mental efforts ever successful in sending an impala off to meet the leopard?

I remember visiting Kruger Park as a kid. On our drive from the gate to the camp we stopped at every gathering of Impala and zebra (they were everywhere). My mom agreed to this because it was the 1st day. We wouldn't stop for impala again during the trip. It was very weird moving to the Cape. There you see Springbok everywhere, not Impala.