Day 2 –Chitabe Camp, Okavango Delta

We were up at 5:30 and out of camp by 6:30 this morning, and it wasn’t as cold as I have been expecting for this time of the year. It wasn’t any cooler than the upper 40’s or lower 50’s, which was kind of nice, and made for an easy morning. When we left camp we wanted to follow up on some lion roars in the distance, and it took us around 45 minutes to locate two adult males. It took us some time offroad, but it only took a couple of roaring sessions for us to home in on their location.

The male lions were good examples of how majestic big cats can be, as they had very dark and large manes. My guests appreciated the early sighting, however the sun never came out during our time with them. On a perfect wildlife photography day we would have a bright and warm sunrise, followed by clouds for the rest of the day for soft light, and then the last hour of light would be warm, direct light again.

After our lion sighting, we located a pair of adult cheetahs, a male and a female. They put on a great show for us, and there were smiles all around. A cheetah on a clean perch, such as a termite mound, is a great thing. Two cheetah on the same perch are an even better thing, indeed. 5 stars!

On our way back to camp, we saw circling vultures overhead. We took the time to check out what was going on, and saw an adult female leopard climb up into a tree when we arrived. What excellent luck on our first full safari day: the 3 big cats all on one game drive. The light wasn’t the most ideal, however we did get some good vantage points to watch her on a low limb in the tree.

We took a break for lunch and returned in the mid afternoon to watch the leopard again. She had not moved an inch since we had left, and we all enjoyed watching and photographing her from different vantage points until after sunset. What an excellent safari day!

Note: All images in these daily blog postings are very very rough edits of the things we have seen, and I often omit the photographs that take too much time to process. I don’t take much time off during the day, as I am working with people with their photographic needs. All of my images in these posts will have to be re-processed when I get back home, and they are only included in these blog entries for illustration purposes.

Comments

[Dave Hutchinson]

Andy...I am sooooooo jealous!!!!