When we first arrived at the group, the silverbacks were chasing off a solitary blackback intent on doing some "wife-shopping" from the group's female ranks.

One of the group silverbacks watches to make sure the blackback is gone.

The group was peaceful soon after the intruder was shown the exit.

This is the group's dominant silverback, Rwansigazi.

One of the many juvenile gorillas in the group. Habinyanja has a total of 22 gorillas, and is the largest tourist group in the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park.

Rwansigazi basks in the bright equatorial sun.

Baby on board.

Eating seemed to be the order of the day during our visit.

Even though they were in a relatively open area, the vegetation was still dense and often obscured the gorillas from view.

The star of our visit, Rukundo's 3-month-old baby, plays peek-a-boo with the humans.

Slowly, he began to peek out to gaze at the assembled group of visitors.

He became more and more curious, and we could see the amazement in his eyes as he stared intently at us.

Here, the baby plays with a handful of leaves, imitating his mother's feeding behavior.

Here is Rukundo, the baby's mother. She paid virtually no attention to the human visitors and just kept eating.

Rwansigazi watched over the group, spread out over a large open area in the forest.

Our group was awestruck by the baby's curiousity toward us. This picture of Rukundo's baby was chosen as a finalist in the 2007 Atlanta Journal-Constitution Travel Photo Contest, "Animals" category.

He looked at us and played out in the open only a few feet from us for at least 15 minutes.

All the while, his mother Rukundo sat right behind intently eating vegetation.

The baby reaches out to explore his world.

Rukundo is still eating for two...

Meanwhile, up a ridge, two other young gorillas square off in a play fight.

One of the youngsters bares his teeth during the contest.

Rukundo

This is another of the group's females named Binyonko, with her baby Kavuyo.

This youngster stared intently at me from about 150 feet away. I believe this is "Kashija."

Kashija, with intervening vegetation that continued to try to fool the autofocus.

The two juveniles continue to tussle.

Then, abruptly, Rwansigazi broke up the play fight and our time with the gorillas was over. The silverbacks' chest-beating echoed through the forest as we hiked away.