Lioness followed by two cubs
Animals,  Themed galleries,  Thursday Trios

Gallery: when three is better than two

Two’s company, three’s a crowd

Well known idiom

Maybe that’s true, but when taking wildlife photos I’m always happy to have a third animal join the shot! Designers have long recognised that an odd number of items is more effective at capturing your gaze. Odd numbers force your eyes to move around the group and that forced movement is the heart of visual interest.

However, as with people a trawl of my archives revealed that it’s a relatively rare occurrence. I mostly seem to have single animals, couples or large groups. Nevertheless I managed to pull together the following selection for this week’s Thursday Trios.

Three lion cubs

Lion cubs, Chobe NP, Botswana – my feature image was also taken here


Two adult baboons and baby riding on the back of one

Another shot from Chobe – a baboon family, part of a larger troop


Adult baboon and two babies sitting on a wall

More baboons, this time at Mandina Lodge in the Gambia


Three wart hogs

A warthog family visiting the water hole at Fathala Lodge in Senegal


Three black pigs on dry ground

Pigs in Phoe Taen Akha, a minority tribe village in northern Laos


Three goats sheltering by a stone wall

Goats in a village on Santiago, one of the Cape Verde Islands


Three camels on a huge flat plain

Black camels in the Empty Quarter, Oman


Three small brown guanaco

Guanaco in the Torres del Paine National Park, Chile


Three sheep lying on the grass in mist

Sheep in the mist near Dunstanburgh Castle, Northumberland


Three sea lions lying close together on a beach

Sea lions chilling on the beach on Espanola in the Galápagos Islands


Two adult elephants and a baby hidden in the grass

And finally, no, I haven’t gone mad!

Look carefully; there are three elephants in this shot from the Okavango Delta in Botswana.

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