Rhino closeup

The Indian rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis) is a very unpredictable animal, its said due to its short-sight it charges first and checks back later.

But thats not a hard and fast rule -

I have seen Rhinos who casually glance at you and go back to grazing peacefully, even at a 10 meters (35 ft) distance and then there was this one I saw who charged an elephant from a good 50+ meters away, maybe it was the hazy morning or he was just plain short tempered.

The one in the picture was almost stalking our open top safari vehicle from among the tall grass when we were about 25 meters away.

Then he charged ... one thing is for certain - they can be deceptively fast.

It gets a bit difficult when you are standing on the back seat, holding onto a side bar of the vehicle with one hand and with the other hand, pointing a heavy camera attached with

600 mm telephoto lens in the general direction of the charging rhino and taking pictures, all at the same time. The driver yelling to hold on tight for dear life also didn't help ... somewhere along I forgot to focus the lens on the charging behemoth whose grunts were getting louder.

In short I ruined a good closeup :-( ....

Luckily for us - when he got to about 10 mts away from our vehicle, he veered away and disappeared in the underbrush.

 

Done