Animal mothers and a 1 hour old giraffe

This Mother’s Day I’m honouring animal mothers and their babies. This series of animals were photographed in 2014, 2015 and 2016 in Kruger National Park and the greater Kruger area in South Africa.

Mother's Day, Mom and baby baboon
One of my favourite animal mothers to watch is baboons.

 

mothers day elephant mom and baby
This little one couldn’t have been more than a month old. I first found it napping with mom standing over it.

 

mother's day newborn giraffe and mom
Mama giraffe cleans her newborn. This giraffe was about an hour old. When we arrived at the sighting, we found it surrounded by eight hyenas. Mom stood on guard until the baby giraffe stood up. Happy to report that hyena did not attack. See video below.

 

mothers day black rhino and baby
Mom and baby black rhino

 

mothers day lioness and 3 cubs
These cubs are part of a pride of 9 lions and were about three months old in this photo. This kill was one of their first meat based meals.

 

mother's day baby zebra
This baby giraffe just finished suckling from its mom.

 

mothers day mom baboon carrying its baby
Watched this pair of baboons for a while as they walked through an open area with their troop. The baby would hitch a ride then climb down to suckle and return to its spot on mom’s back.

 

 

Bonus: 

fathers day lion and cub
With Father’s Day around the corner, I couldn’t resist this one of this lion cub and his father. This cub is one of the cubs from the photo above of the lioness and her three cubs. In this image; he’s about nine months old.

 

 

Andrea is a professional travel and portrait photographer, photography educator, founder of The Heart of a Woman Project, a women's mobile photography initiative and publisher of wanderingiPhone.com. Andrea began her photography career in 2003 in Toronto, Canada. Her work has been featured on CBC, W Network, Splice Network and in national and international print and digital magazines including Shutterbug magazine.