When we first arrived at the group, the silverbacks were chasing off a solitary blackback intent on doing some "wife-shopping" from the group's female ranks. |
One of the group silverbacks watches to make sure the blackback is gone. |
The group was peaceful soon after the intruder was shown the exit. |
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This is the group's dominant silverback, Rwansigazi. |
One of the many juvenile gorillas in the group. Habinyanja has a total of 22 gorillas, and is the largest tourist group in the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. |
Rwansigazi basks in the bright equatorial sun. |
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Baby on board. |
Eating seemed to be the order of the day during our visit. |
Even though they were in a relatively open area, the vegetation was still dense and often obscured the gorillas from view. |
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The star of our visit, Rukundo's 3-month-old baby, plays peek-a-boo with the humans. |
Slowly, he began to peek out to gaze at the assembled group of visitors. |
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He became more and more curious, and we could see the amazement in his eyes as he stared intently at us. |
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Here, the baby plays with a handful of leaves, imitating his mother's feeding behavior. |
Here is Rukundo, the baby's mother. She paid virtually no attention to the human visitors and just kept eating. |
Rwansigazi watched over the group, spread out over a large open area in the forest. |
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Our group was awestruck by the baby's curiousity toward us. This picture of Rukundo's baby was chosen as a finalist in the 2007 Atlanta Journal-Constitution Travel Photo Contest, "Animals" category. |
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He looked at us and played out in the open only a few feet from us for at least 15 minutes. |
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All the while, his mother Rukundo sat right behind intently eating vegetation. |
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The baby reaches out to explore his world. |
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Rukundo is still eating for two... |
Meanwhile, up a ridge, two other young gorillas square off in a play fight. |
One of the youngsters bares his teeth during the contest. |
Rukundo |
This is another of the group's females named Binyonko, with her baby Kavuyo. |
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This youngster stared intently at me from about 150 feet away. I believe this is "Kashija." |
Kashija, with intervening vegetation that continued to try to fool the autofocus. |
The two juveniles continue to tussle. |
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Then, abruptly, Rwansigazi broke up the play fight and our time with the gorillas was over. The silverbacks' chest-beating echoed through the forest as we hiked away. |