buffalo stance pt I

Bovines are really quite remarkabke animals - whilst we (or at least those of us lucky enough to have green space to look) see cows in fields fairly often and probably think nothing of them, its worth remembering these are huge and remarkable animals. I guess that is probably one of the reasons why very young children are often fascinated by farms - to them there is little difference between a cow and a zebra, bison or elephant at the zoo. Wild European cows are now extinct but feral populations exist in a number of places. Australia and Argentina both have populations of wild cattle and those island scrub cattle are just another example and all of these tend to be remarkably impressive to see. Similarly impressive are other wild bovines such as the water buffalo I saw in Sri Lanka. Fascinatingly living wild but separately in Yala National Park are both true, wild, water buffalo and also feral herds of domestic water buffalo. The differences are obvious and amazing:

sweet, safe, domesticated horns:

not-so-sweet,not-so-safe, not-so-domesticated horns:

I'll have more to say on these awesome animals later but for now let's bask in the magnificence of those horns.