Etosha National Park – more amazing animal photos

There are many baby animals in the park of all species this time of year. This very young baby elephant was napping under the shade of his mother. It got up, had a stretch, and then started to nurse.

This young male lion has just finished eating his share of a zebra, and is off looking for shade to digest his meal while the three female lions in the pride eat the remains of the kill. Even though the females hunt, the male eats first. We watched him swat off the females until he had finished eating. Male lions mostly lie around all the day … interesting to me that the females tolerate it.

This springbok nibbles the leaves of an acacia tree with 2 inch long thorns. Springbok travel in large herds, and when they are frightened they bounce high in the air and run with huge high leaps off the ground, moving amazingly fast considering how high they jump with each stride.

Lone male Red Hartebeast. Many of the antelope species have one dominant male in the herd. He forces the other young male out of the herd, and you see them either wandering alone or in small groups of males, away from the breeding herds of females and young.

The birdlife in and around the park is also extraordinary. This Lilac Breasted Roller is just one of the incredibly beautiful birds – many which adopt incredible nesting and survival techniques to survive in the desert.

Red Breasted Shrike – formerly the National bird of Namibia until they won independence in 1990. They replaced the lovely shrike with the fiercer Fish Eagle.

This Bee Eater has caught a juicy dragonfly. It takes a while to choke it down, but it eventually manages.