hippopotamus.
Roll and wallow,
bellow and burp.
Loaf all day,
and eat all night.
I wish I,
were a hippotomi!
Cheers to you from Kruger’s loudest critter~
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Superb!
Awwww, so kind!
I feel so fortunate t be on of the first people to see this, thank you for posting 🙂
Ohhhh, I am so lucky to know you!
the feeling is the same 🙂
<3
You do our wild life such justice with your amazing photos… wish you were here so I could take you with to the Kalahari Gemsbok Park on our trip next month…. it is so different to Kruger… yet so brilliant a place. .. I think you’d love it. … no fences around the camps so the lion can get close, as do all the animals that want to…. but the viewing of game is so different…. google it
I was especially interested in what you would think of my photos because you are a brilliant photographer and you live in South Africa, meaning you know so much more than I. The fact that you think I do your wildlife justice is huge to me.
I would so love to visit the Kalahari.
I don’t know what it is, but I feel safer among South Africa’s wild animals than anywhere.
It’s because the rules are so clear. Listen to the animals, they will tell you what to do, and they are so much more honest then many humans.
Friendship and cheers to you my friend. Already missing Africa~
Wow ….. the fact that you realised that the animals tell you when they are feeling nervous is fantastic…. wish more visitors were like you, it would save the lives of so many of our animals that are shot because people think they are impervious to an attack… you are so welcome to our animal Kingdom, we need more tourists like you… I would so love to show you the Kalahari park, so different to Kruger… you would love it
I would love the Kalahari and would especially enjoy an insiders view! Have a most splendid time and I look forward with anticipation to your photos my friend!
Love hippos.
Me too! <3
Thank you for sharing your photographs, Cindy. 🙂
Thank you for looking at them Ranu~ <3
Fantastic 🙂
Oh, thank you!
Such lovely words with laid back hippos. Burp!
Thank you, I wish I could burp all day without saying “excuse me!” 😉
fantastic photos – especially the one upside down! Thats not something I’ve seen before!
Me neither! Muddy hooves! 😉
Wouldn’t want those across my carpet, I will stick with dogs 😉
Yeah, I’m not sure they would make the best pets……. 😉 😉
Fantabulous! ʕ(♥‿♥)ʔ
Just like your emoticons!!!
Wow impressive captures – fascinating animal, maybe not the most clever (been told their brains are smaller than smal) but they are stupid with style… 😀
Well, I don’t know how intelligent they are, but I am impressed they can roll over in rivers without getting water in their ears! 😉 They are endangered because people hunt them, and that to me is the essence of stupidity! 😉
Once read in the National Geography that the hippo brain was very small not much bigger than a fist – it should also be the wild animals in Africa that kills the most people, but mostly it was the man’s own sake – a very impressive animal in my eyes – when we see how relaxed they can be so it’s hard to imagine their great temperament and fearlessness in other contexts… 🙂
Yes, I was always struck by the fearsome reputations many of these animals have, and the peaceful placid creatures I observed. I think the two keys are threat and food. If a wild African animal feels threatened by you, you are in trouble. Similarly, if you look like food to them and they are hungry, you may well be in trouble too. This doesn’t happen with the hippsters though because they are grazers. They can be incredibly dangerous when threatened though, so I made sure not to do this. I did observe a mother hippo get separted from her calf by a reckless safari vehicle. All I observed in both mother and calf was heartbreaking terror~
Amazing creatures, I can see, that you kept yourself in a good distance Cindy 😀
Funny a hippo actually got very close to me without me knowing it while I was barbequing. This was on my first trip to Africa. He was grunting at me in the bushes and I didn’t know what sort of critter it was at first! It was on the other side of an electric fence though!
You were very lucky Cindy, that there was a fence 🙂
Most of all because they are so unpredictable, we never know, what they will do.
Yes, I have seen videos of irate hippos, including one chasing a ranger down a road. Scary~
Ganz herzlichen Dank für deine wunderbaren und einmaligen Bilder aus der fantastischen Natur Südafrikas. Ich stand einen Moment neben Dir und staunte über die Tierwelt, während Du fotografiert hast. Ernst
Oh du bist eine wunderbare Person Ernst und ich fuhle mich geehrt, die Sie kennen!
Even with their tough and fearsome reputation, they are still SO cute! I just love the picture of them out sunbathing. Seeing how they spend their day makes me want to be a hippopotamus too! Thanks Cindy. <3 🙂 ~Lynn
They really are fun animals to watch and listen too! They are so noisy. You can see that little baby hippo bellowing. Why was he bellowing? I think because he felt like it! 😉
Wunderschöne Fotos Grüße lieb und wünsche ein gutes und sonniges weeklend Gruß und Umarmung Gislinde
Gluckliche Samstag mein lieber Gislinde und Prost! <3
beautiful pics as usual !! and so empathetic …..
Takes a person with empathy to recogize it in another! <3
How wonderful to be in such a fantastic place.
Yes, you can see why I have flown 22 hours twice to be there!
Con esa apariencia bonachona, son temibles. Mejor mantenerse alejado de ellos. 😉
Definitivamente no quieren abrazar a los seres humanos y les gusta su espacio! 😉 😉
They look cute and sort of funny the way they lay on the dry ground together there.
Do you see the baby bellowing? Over what? I have no idea. They just to like bellowing! 😉
You capture different worlds so well. So glad you took that vacation.:)
Even more glad that you came along! You made the experience better~ <3
Reblogged this on Smorgasbord – Variety is the spice of life and commented:
I love hippos and Cindy Knoke has taken some stunning photographs on her trip.. do pop over.
You are very thougthful Sally and most appreciated my friend! Thank you~ <3
Pleasure Cindy and enjoy the weekend.
Ooooh, how I ❤️ these goofy beasts. Fabulous photos, Cindy.
Aren’t they wonderful! I can’t believe their constant conversations, carried out motto voce!
How fun to watch these hippos. Great captures, Cindy! Love the last one. 🙂
I think that is what you call a perfect, symbiotic relathionship! <3
Beautifully said. It’s why it’s so moving… 🙂 <3
Nothing like seeing them in the wild, Cindy. Great captures. I liked Bulldog’s comment. You do them justice.
Awww, that especially makes me happy Lynne. Thank you~
What strange and fascinating creatures–great capture on the last image.
They are incredibly vocal! They carry on like nobody’s business all day long. I liked the photo of the baby bellowing, you could hear him clear as day from a mile away! 😉
Wonderful photos!
Awwww, thanks and Happy Weekend Timothy!
Your wonderful free-verse poetry plus photos really made me smile! Have a great weekend, Cindy!
Well, if you smiled, that is only fair, since your posts always do the same to me my friend! <3
Awww, you are so sweet, Cindy! I can’t remember how I found your blog, but I am so glad that I did! xo
<3 <3
Great to see Africa from a personal perspective. 🙂
I think one of you Hippo’s is being Stalked. 😀
Yep, I was always was a hippster! I fully relate to the lifestyle~ 😉
Whuffle 🙂
Love this, Cindy. It reminds me of an uncle of mine, God rest his soul….
Well it sounds like he’s spending both his lives resting! 😉
So fantastic and fun, Cindy!
Thanks my friend and that is a good description of an African safari!
Stirring pictures, especially that crane (?) taking a free ride. They must be friends or have made a pact, methinks. 😀 😀 😀 Love all your photography. Keep up the wonderful work. <3 <3
Awwww, thanks and the herons hippo surf all the time! I bet they eat bugs off the hippos backs.
Oh, it’s a heron! I don’t know all our feathered friends. My comment was tongue in cheek and yes, I’ve seen these twosomes before and assumed they had to have some kind of understanding. A hippo back laden with bugs sounds a good exchange. 😀 😀 😀
Amazing photos of fabulous creatures. Gee, somehow they so remind me of me! LOL 😆
They definitely do all the things I like to do, eat, talk, sleep and loaf!
Even alligators don’t mess with those guys. They gave bad tempers.
They can be a tad techy! 😉
I loved hippos as a kid and always wanted to see one- still think they’re interesting and awesome! Wonderful shots of them! 😍
I have noticed that the things you loved as a child, you still enjoy as an adult, if you have the time to pay attention!
Yes that’s true and I’m so thankful for my girls because I get to let out that kid again 😉😄
It is a wonderful aspect of being a parent! I miss those days~
Still I’m amazed that such cute animals can be so ferocious, when kid I’d love to be on one like the bird in the last photograph, lol, now I know that the end wouldn’t be so happy.
They are so protective of their young and you are right. It would be awesome to be a bird because when something or someone bothers you, you can just fly away! 😉
Great pictures! I have so many memories, mostly funny, of hippos. Like meeting one walking on the path back to our lodge on New Years Eve after midnight…he looked pink 😉 But I took care never to swim in same waters with them. I bet you left part of your heart out there in the wilderness….
I totally did leave a chunk of my heart with the wild ones. I don’t care how wild the wild things are,
“And the wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws.” They are still nicer than some humans! 😉 😉
What a life! And in a way, they are pretty darned cute too.
Yep, these are the reasons I’d like to be a hippo! 😉 😉
Daring heron. I’m surprised “he” looks very similar to our herons.
He does look the same and those herons are fully addicted hippo surfers. I’m surprised they aren’t smoking pot…. 😉 😉
If the hippos move around do the herons still hang out or do they prefer their hippos more mellow?
I saw herons staying on the hippos as they swam gently, but if they made abrupt moves, they flew off……They were on hippos who were sleeping and awake, sometimes two herons per hippo!
Amazingly benign-looking for such dangerous beasts. I loved the picture of the doped-up hippo which had escaped from the zoo in Tblisi during a flood, walking along sedately and calmly with the men who rounded it up! Wonderful photos!
Ohhhh, I must google this photo. I remember the video of the ranger being chased down the street by a ticked off hippo. Never did find out the denouement of this debacle!
How GORGEOUS – what delightful captures! 😉
Very pleased you enjoyed them and I am a big fan of your photography as well!
Thank you Cindy! 🙂
Wonderful insight into the world of hippos! 🙂
Of course none of it is remotely factual! 😉 😉
Of course not! Wolfie knew that 😉 lol
Smart wolf child` <3
How close were you able to physically get to the animals. This is an amazing trip you are sharing with us. Thank you.
I was usually on a bridge looking down on a river, or in a bird hide, by a lake. We were closer at the lakes in the hides, but they are safe observation platforms. The closest I got to a hippo was on our first trip, when one was grunting right at the fence next to me while I barbequed! The fence was electrified however and I was perfectly safe. Oh, and I forgot, we went on three ranger driven game drives, and the ranger got the vehicle inadvertantly in the middle of a mother hippo and her calf at night. They feed on land at night. Both animals were in an absolute panic, I think a lion was involved. We were very close to both, but again in a National Park vehicle and perfectly safe. I felt terrible for both of them, especially when the ranger explained that “lions take advantage of situations like this.”
Makes me want to say bad, bad lion but he/she is doing what comes naturally. You are definitely experiencing these animals up close and personal and if there’s anyone I trust with the treasures of the world, it’s you.
I’d have to stay in the shallows because I’m not much of a swimmer, Cindy 🙂 Superb shots!
Plus, I’m not really eager to go for a dip with a hippo! 😉
You’re not? They look good company to me, but maybe a little clumsy. I suffer from that myself so we’d get on well 🙂
Wow, what a trip Cindy. They’re really cute as young ones. Hard to imagine how big they get. Do they have any natural predator I wonder?
Only one significant predator, humans. They are classified as endangered. Lions and crocs will pick off babies if the mother is distracted, but the principal predator of hippos are humans.
We can be a nasty species can’t we.
Wow great entry.
Welcome & merci beaucoup!
Will take a pass on the hippo burps, thanks. 😉 As always, amazing photos.
Laughing……what, you don’t like hippo burps??? 😉 😉
Perhaps not in person. 🙂
Best heard from a distance………
Hippos are….never mind!
adorable?????? 😉 😉
So you could bellow and Burp? 🙂 Wonderful photos of hippos. –Curt
I would love to both bellow and burp, two things that tend to be frowned upon if I do……..
Go for it Cindy. 🙂 I won’t tell. –Curt
Thanks for these wonderful photos Cindy. They really are extraordinary creatures!
Alison
Can’t wait till you go Alison, so I can travel vicariously with you!
Wow, extraordinary photos and animals!
Despite their fearsome reputation, they are peaceable grazers, unless they get annoyed. One doesn’t want to annoy a hippo!
Absolutely beautiful creatures, your pictures do them credit Cindy, it is so beautiful to see them in their natural environment, as opposed to the stark portrayal in Zoos.
There is such an incredible difference in the eyes of animals that are free compared to those in zoos isn’t there! Hippos in a concrete pool just aren’t the same.
Agree Cindy.