Esmae's Animal Filled World

There are 16 lions who may not have anything to eat this week, so if you care about lions, please consider sending them $5, $10, or whatever you can afford.  Although there are many worthy charitable causes, this is literally a life or death situation for these lions so I hope you will consider help

In September of 2003, we were looking for a companion dog for our then almost a year old Aussie, Callie.  We knew we wanted to adopt a rescue dog, and we read about Simon, a red merle Australian Shepherd estimated to be between 4 and 6 years old.  He had survived a lot of trauma - some of which was

One thing I wanted to make sure my husband saw during his first (and possibly only) visit to Africa was mountain gorillas in the wild.  So we detoured from Tanzania to Rwanda to see gorillas.  Although I had been to see gorillas in Rwanda in 2007 on two separate hikes, and in Uganda the same trip, I

Seeing a leopard is always a supreme treat on a safari.  This trip, we saw two leopard cubs.  They were walking a distance away, and I didn't get any photos as I was busy watching them and trying not to lose them. As the cars gathered in the central Serengeti for a glimpse of the cubs, making it har

Although I've seen spotted hyenas before, this trip I saw some young ones.  Pictured here is a baby hyena nursing from mom.  In a separate sighting, a young hyena came up the rod very curious about our vehicle and gave it a good luck; that's the other picture.  Both viewings were very nice.  Althoug

The endangered black rhino can be hard to see, but we luckily got a viewing in Norongoro Crater of this one.  Unfortunately, Norongoro Crater is not a great place to see such an animals, because you have one rhino and about 40 cars.  It's sad.  Everyone wants to see a rhino, so the call goes out and

As a horse lover, of course I have a soft spot for Zebras.  My favorite are Grevy's zebras, but those are endangered and hard to see; I have only seen them in Samburu National Park in Kenya.  On our Tanzania trip, we saw the much more common "Common Zebra" (so aptly named).  Although they may be com

I am not a birder.  I do not like the checklist approach to wildlife viewing, and I admit I have a hard time understanding how someone can look past a mammal like a giraffe or an elephant to ooo and awww over a tiny bird.  But, I do understand that birds are harder to see, more fleeting in your time

We had a glimpse of a pride of lions in Norongoro Crater.  I love how lions blend into the grass; scary but beautiful.  The scenery looks not unlike Idaho except for the lions.  We saw the same pride of lions overlooking some buffalo in the distance a few hours later.  I like this shot of a lioness