Sir David Attenborough once said
“There is more meaning and mutual understanding in exchanging a glance with a gorilla than any other animal I know.”
I have to agree.
On our latest, fabulous, Uganda trip, apart from the people and the huge variety of other wildlife that made the trip special, my two most poignant animal highlights were with gorillas. Firstly with the silverback pictured above.
I was low to the ground, lying maybe, the remainder of the human group was some 20 meters away with the gorilla family. I was alone with the male. After taking some low-light images I put my camera down and the gorilla and I simply stared at each other. Not a hard stare but more a contemplation. It was profound. A reckoning of two personalities, characters from different worlds – individuals.
Half an hour later, after wading across a forest stream, to catch sight of the gorillas crossing too, an adult female stopped to sit on a rock and scrutinize me, up to my knees in the water that she had chosen to carefully pick her way over rocks to avoid. We again stared at each other with deliberate and piercing eye contact.
She was at home at the forest and soon dissolved into the understorey.
All images ©Pete Oxford.
