An excellent place to see white rhino and black rhino is Pilanesberg Game Reserve in northern South Africa. White rhino are slightly larger than black rhino and generally graze grasslands, unlike the browsing, scrub-favouring black rhino. This white rhino female and calf gradually grazed closer to my car in the early evening. "Prehistoric" is by far the most apt word to describe them.[April 2007].
All content © 2009 Pete McGregor
She's got a few wrinkles, Pete. Were you wearing a hat from which the rays of the sun were reflected in more than oriental splendour, and had you made a Superior Comestible with flour and water and currants and plums and sugar and things on a cooking-stove of the kind that you must particularly never touch? ;-)
ReplyDeleteIt must have been a thrill to see these extraordinary creatures in their natural habitat.
Almost looks molded of concrete.
ReplyDeletewow what a view. do you still have the colored version of this? i'd love it as my desktop wallpaper for a bit :) many props for this
ReplyDeleteLesley — ha! Maybe she'd managed to tolerate the cake crumbs under her skin, because she seemed unperturbed by the cars — almost placid.
ReplyDeleteZhoen, she probably weighs about the same as if she were made of concrete (5–6 tonnes, apparently).
D.V.A., welcome back, and thanks. Sorry, this is B&W only; the raw file is colour but it lacks the impact of the B&W conversion and would be quite a different photo if I tried to work it up in colour. Moreover, the colours are icky — mostly drab yellows and olive-greens.
Nice use of the photographic technical term 'icky' there Pete. :)
ReplyDeleteI'm sure all the best photographers use it, Andrew ;^)
ReplyDeleteThis could only work, as it does, in B&W. Great image! It must have been exciting seeing a rhino in the wild! They don't look like they should actually exist.
ReplyDeleteThanks Miguel :^) I agree with that last observation, too — they're strange animals. If we don't manage to prevent their extinction, I wonder what the kids of the 22nd century will think of that failure — how we deprived them of being able to see these spectacular animals?
ReplyDelete