During this rainy time of year, begins the journey of many animals. Many animals in the African bush time their births in the rainy season, so as to maximise chances of survival. This is so that cover is thick and food is abundant.
37 year old Sales Manager, Brett Reisen, was privileged enough to have witnessed a miracle birth of a baby buffalo in the Sabi Sands.
He tells Latestsightings.com about this awesome moment: “We were watching a pride of 12 lions near Savanah and drove off heading back to the camp when we came across a herd of over 100 buffalo (less than a KM away from the lion).
We were watching them for a few minutes and one of the people that was with us noticed the one cow that was about to give birth. It seems like she held off pushing the calf out for a while until she was comfortable with us around.
The whole birth took around 15-20 minutes, and she did it all alone. Births are when animals are in a very vulnerable state from predators, so the act is built to be a very fast one.
The strange thing is that the herd came to see the calf and headed off, offering her no protection. What was also amazing was the amount of oxpeckers that appeared to be lined up on the cows back.
It was also amazing to see how attentive the cow was (it seemed like she was walking away to try encourage the calf to get up) every time the calf tried to stand up how she almost ran to help every time the calf fell.
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It was such an excitement to be able to see the calf being born, better than seeing any animal hunting. We had to try keep our distance to ensure the cow was comfortable with us around. This was truly an amazing experience!”
