Photo of the Day - Lioness in Tree

Lioness Climbing a Tree, Mala Mala Game Reserve, South Africa. November 2010

Nikon D3, 70-200mm f/2.8 VR, 1/800 @ f/5.6, ISO 1000

I absolutely love it when I find things in nature that surprise me. Lions in trees is one of those situations that isn’t all that unusual, but most of the time these scenarios turn out to be photographic busts. Most of the time I see twigs and branches in the way, and rarely do I get a clear shot with an alert cat. Here we had a few lionesses who were climbing up and down this tree, and even though we had an uninteresting background with marginal light, the light was at least soft in the middle of the day for us to stay out longer than we would normally be out on a game drive. A typical game drive may end by 9:30 or 10am in the summer time, as it gets quite warm and the light is harsh. Yes, there are twigs and other branches in the way, but it is at least worthy of sharing for the blog.

Greg du Toit will be running a small and intimate group of photographs to Mala Mala in late July, and you can find more about this safari on my main web site:

2011 Predators of the Sabi Sands Photo Safari with Greg du Toit

Photo of the Day

Lioness in a Tree

Mala Mala Game Reserve, South Africa. November 2010

Nikon D3, 70-200mm f/2.8, 1/400 @ f/7.1, ISO 800

Day 22 – Tuningi Safari Lodge, Madikwe Game Reserve, South Africa

Today was a little warmer than the past 3 weeks, and it was very welcome. The sun came out in full force, and the morning warmed up into the 70’sF rather quickly. I had forgotten what it was like to wear shorts, even though back home I haven’t worn long pants to the office in at least 4 or 5 months.

This morning was a little on the quiet side, so I am focusing this entry on the afternoon’s sightings. I really enjoy the winter’s dining schedule, because morning brunch is typically served around 9:30 or so, high tea is at 2:00 and game drives leave around 3:00 or 3:30. Dinner is usually at 7:30, which tends to be within 15 to 30 minutes after getting back from the afternoon game drive. This is great, because I am typically wiped out at the end of the day and there isn’t too much time to mess around after getting back from the game drive.

This afternoon we took off around 3:30, and headed back to one of the more productive watering holes. We were joined by Gerry Van Der Walt and his wife Adele, so it was nice to have a casual drive with friends today. Gerry is a great photographer, and he also runs Photo-Africa.com, a great web site for photo enthusiasts who also love Africa.

Immediately after our arrival at the dam, we found numerous family groups of elephants. There were two large families, one small family and then some sparring bulls scattered throughout. It was a virtual playground of elephants today! I really enjoyed sitting back and just watching their behavior, and how they organize themselves when drinking water. What I mean is that adult female elephants really do look after their young, especially when a family is clumped up together and drinking from a small water source.

My attention quickly went towards two sparring males, and I really enjoyed watching just how gently they pushed each other around, because when they fight for real it can be quite violent.

After the fight, we moved around and noticed three lions deep in the mud. They had obviously taken down an impala, and were ripping it apart. This was definitely a fresh kill, and the challenge was that they were a little far away and not at a good angle for us. We couldn’t get a better angle, so we just sat and waited for them to finish their mud-crusted meal. It took some time, but they moved off the carcass after a while and made their way into the thick bush. I was able to grab one quick shot of one of the lions up on a hill, and the lion was about as muddy as a lion could ever get. She quickly hurried off into the thick bush, and we headed for sundowner drinks after we lost them a few hundred meters into the bush. 

What a great day!

Bull elephants sparring at the watering hole

Bull elephants sparring at the watering hole

Three lions eating in the mud

The lioness, all covered in mud from head to tail. Only her eyes and a little bit of her whiskers were showing

..and she scuttles off into the bush

Adele, Gerry and Leslie take a break

Photo of the Day

The Chase

Nikon D300, 200-400mm, 1/1600 @ f/4, ISO 800

Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania

Tanzania safari report - Day 12

We 'slept in' today and heard our camp staff wake us up with "Jambo Jambo" with jugs of hot water. We quickly ate breakfast, said goodbye to our camp staff and headed east towards mawe ya Maasai and vilima saba. Our goal was to get out onto the open plains and see something slightly different than the past 2 days. My heart, from a photographic sense, is soft for the open savannah. I find it much easier to compose with than the acacia woodland for the types of wildlife that I like to shoot.

We encountered great wildlife, and spent time with multiple elephant herds, topi, hartebeest, zebra, grant's gazelle and finished up with a mating pair of lions. The wind out on the plains was at least a 15mph, and that makes shooting with a long lens quite difficult. The lens hood on a 500mm or 600mm lens acts like a sail in the wind, as wind gets trapped and oves the lens. A good technique to offset the wind is to shoot from a lower position in the vehicle and block the wind. One thing you cannot eliminate is the wind's effect on the vehicle itself.

After our 'coitus interruptus' with the lions, we spotted a mother cheetah and her 3 year-old cubs. Gosh, what a beautiful and magnificent animal. We watched her from a comfortable 75 feet, even though we could have approached closer. Cheetahs are the only cat that actively hunts in the middle of the day, and we didn't want to interfere with her hunting.

We did notice her looking in one particular direction, and we quickly determined that there were more cheetahs around. We saw another mother with a very very young cub within binocular distance. This was definitely the highlight of my morning! We moved to watch mother #2, and within a few minutes she picked up her week old cub in her mouth and moved her out of sight. We didn't follow, but we did notice that she had another cub that she had not moved yet. Or was is 2? Well, we waited to find out. This may be the wildlife highlight of my year. The original cheetah mother could still be seen in the distance, and how the heck did we miss that she had *four*, not three cubs! So now we had visual confirmation of 8 cheetahs, perhaps 9 or 10. So we waited for mother #2 to come back to find out just how many more cubs were left. She looked nervous when she came back, so we left her alone to complete her moving of her cubs. We don't know how many she had in total, but our cheetah count for the day was 8 with at least one more unseen.

After lunch we headed back to the visitor center to get checked in for tomorrow's hot air balloon ride. For some reason they don't just accept that you have already paid and that you are going to show up. I guess that they would rather force you to show up the day before, and if you don't show up they can resell you spots and make double the money. It kind of frustrates me, but it is what it is and you have to learn the right attitude when working in Africa. Just smile, make friends and your blood pressure will benefit. Beer also helps. :-)

We drove the road towards mawe meupe (white rocks) and....ding! Another leopard. Not the best view, but that was leopard #2 for the safari. We didn't stick around for long and drove another 300 yards and ding! Another leopard in a tree. These guys must be mating, as both are full grown. We sat for a while until the sun started to set and then it was tim to head back to camp. No good views of either, however we had a great time watching both of them lounge around.

Whew. What a day. Time for a shower, dinner and bed. I still have tons of energy, however I have another 8 days to go so I have to conserve my energy.

Photo of the Day

Lioness in a Tree

Serengeti National Park, Tanzania. June 2006

Canon 5D, 500mm f/4 + 1.4x, 1/100 sec @ f/10, ISO 250

Photo of the Day

Male Lion on the Floodplains, Kwetsani Camp, Okavango Delta, Botswana. July 2009

Nikon D3, 200-400mm, 1/800 @ f/5.6, ISO 3200