Wild animals! C'est bête

Despite so much sand and dryness, we encounter many strange and wonderous beastly creatures here in Niger. And we wanted to share some of that with you! Many photos in this blog! You can click on any photo to expand it.

We will start with animals found in our front yard!

Our faithful protector and companion Missy, is very curious and attentive, I saw here wagging her tail quite excitedly at a bush in our yard one day - alas these photos show her discovery. West meets east?

The large brown nose is Missy our dog and the grey creature is a Chameleon lizard. The Chameleon changed colour to green later, but it is in distress at the moment.

Missy was trying to put the poor thing in its mouth, so I held back on her to let the creature escape.




Another closeup photo of the Chameleon. Chameleons hiss when in combat mode.




Another creature found, this time by Christine in her compost, was a small hedgehog. Upon discovery it currled up into a very tight spiny ball, see photo of the prickly baseball. The ball is perfectly round and spiky, no signs of life or body parts except you can tell it is breathing somehow.


We put the prickly ball on the ground and waited.
I (Tim) waited an hour while sipping lemonade and reading, keeping an eye on our visitor.




After an hour it got tired of hiding and unravelled itself! Unravelling took a couple of minutes.
Then it calmly crawled away.

Our next photos, as we stay in Niamey city, are creatures at the office! Actually animals we see in front of the yard at work, starting with the office of Samaritan's Purse.

Right in front of the SP office is where a herder keeps about 25 cattle, some donkeys and a camel.


This is a picture of our neighbour's camel, along with it's saddle sitting in front of it.


There are many small creatures too of course. A common and not-so delicious meal here is fried grasshoppers, a bowl of which was bought and shared with the staff.

See photos of the bugs and snack time.

MMmmmm, well ..., edible and nutritious but ... not so tasty.

There are creatures at the Sahel Academy too, particularly noticeble is the large tortoise - here's a repeat shot. There is another one wandering the grounds of at the American rec centre, and it likes to eat the nice green grass in the baseball pitch.

Now as we venture out in the country...

A common site in Niger are "vehicles" pulled by animals, typically donkeys or bulls. You won't see any horse pulled carriages here.


So the term "cow power" would make more sense that horse power, as in the photo. You will see wagons pushed/pulled by Africans themselves as well. These vehicles are not too quick, a challenge for motor vehicles amongst others.


There are some pretty ornery looking bulls too! Various types of horns can be seen on different bulls.





Niger is home to the last wild giraffe herds in west Africa. Herds of giraffes roam freely in the wild in certain parts of Niger, near Dosso which is not far from Niamey.
And so we drove out in search of them - with great success!
We drove the 4x4 through the bush while our guide stood in the truck box. The guide would give directions to the driver (Tim) via a very long stick/tree and by tapping it on the front windshield, and by this we'd scout for giraffes and then head off to catch them.

Donkeys! These are marvellous animals, and they live a HARD life here in Niger. These photos below are taken from my SP trip to Tchin-tabaradene in northern Niger, where we have partnership projects for grain banks and goat herds.
In these photos, donkeys are used for pulling water from a well. The well in this area is 100 metres deep! With water beginning at a depth of 97 metres. The well has a pulley and rope, with the rope attached to a group (4) of donkeys. The donkeys are driven out 100 metres to pull up the water catch basin (large leather pouch). You can see that there are a lot of camels in this area as well.

Heading further out - here's some birds we saw in the wild at the Parc W (highly zoomed in!). We also saw unique birds near the river, but birds are always quite difficult to photograph, they are fast and shy.





Camels are a very common sight here!
Camels walk on the street in front of our home in Niamey almost every day.

They can often be seen carrying very large loads, particularly for carrying large straw walls which are used for building huts or as a roof.

And last but not least (unless you ask the dog) is the furry beast prowling inside our apt at times, here seen at its favorite spot on the couch in its usual position.

The cat is often seen snuggling up to the dog, or fleeing from it in sheer terror, depending on the mood of the dog.

that's it for the animal show for now!

No doubt we will add some more as other "things" make their appearance.