Foraging Buddies

Maasai Mara, Kenya, 2007

A cattle egret rides shotgun atop an African cape buffalo in Kenya's Maasai Mara. It's hard to picture a herd of buffalo grazing out on the Maasai Mara's grassy savanna without a handful of picturesque white cattle egrets along for the ride. So why's it so common to see the two together? In short, they're foraging buddies. As the buffalo slowly graze their way across the savanna, the egrets follow along - snatching up insects, frogs, worms, and various other critters disrupted by the herds slow-speed advance.