Safari Update - Serengeti

The Chase

Serengeti National Park, Tanzania. March 2011

Nikon D3x, 200-400mm, 1/1600 @ f/5.6, ISO 400

Ok, where do I even begin? Let me first start off by saying that I am not going to write down all that happened today, other than one amazing wildlife moment. It was a moment that is up there with my best wildlife viewing moments over the past 10 years of running photo safaris in Africa. It was that kind of cool moment. So here goes.

We saw a kill. A good one, at that. We were sitting at a good watering hole, watching zebras and wildebeest come in for water. After about half an hour we saw a huge splash in the water as a lioness came running out of the bushes to chase the subjects were just photographing. I completely missed the shots, as we were in a bad location to shoot the lioness, but we did track her down afterwards. We noticed she was very very interested in the wildebeests that lay beyond the water, and she started stalking back towards the water’s edge. We moved our vehicle into position to anticipate where she would hunt, and right as we settled down…….POW! She was chasing after a couple of older wildebeest in hopes of having a nice meal.

I grabbed a few frames before she ran within my minimum focusing distance on my Nikon 200-400mm lens, as you can see in the following frame.

Whoops. The minimum focusing distance on the 200-400mm is only 6 feet. Nothing like a lioness chasing a wildebeest only inches away.

The lioness grabbed the wildebeest by the throat only a few feet from the back of my Land Rover, and the struggle only lasted about a minute as the wildebeest was brought to the ground. We had to maneuver the vehicle to be able to shoot from the windows, as the lioness was still trying to finish off the job, so to speak. Autofocus was a challenge, for sure, as there was waving grass right in front of her face. I had to tweak the focus manually, as autofocus just does not work in these situations. The best thing to do is to tweak it manually and stop down a little bit to make sure that you have enough depth of field in case you missed the focus.

…And the final shot

Lesson learned: always be ready for the action, and always decide ahead of time which lens you are going to use. The 70-200mm would not have been ideal for the chase, however it might have worked when they ran by the vehicle. That wasn’t ‘the shot’ I was after, so my 200-400mm was chosen and I went with it.

The rest of the day was also amazing, but in a very very different way.

Safari Update - Serengeti

Zebras at a Watering Hole

Serengeti National Park, Tanzania. March 2011

Nikon D3, 200-400mm, 1/800 @ f/6.3, ISO 400

Today we said goodbye to the wonderful Kusini staff, and headed north through the acacia woodland towards the central Serengeti. We are spending the last 3 nights of this safari at the new Kempenski Bilila Lodge, and I can already tell you that I really do like the accommodations here. But I digress…

The morning game drive was fairly quiet until we got to the Moru Kopjes, where we stumbled on a lion pride with many young cubs. We didn’t have a long time with them, as they were rapidly moving from the open grasslands to shaded trees, and we were on our way within a few minutes. It’s funny to be so casual about passing up lion opportunities, but these safaris really do allow my travelers to get picky about which opportunities are good and which are marginal. I am spoiled, for sure.

When we made it to the Moru Kopjes we saw three female lions in the distance, as well as a solo female leopard out in the waving green grass. These weren’t photographic moments, but rather great sightings that make me think long and hard about walking out in the open in the middle of the Serengeti. I had that thought on my mind as we also came across two large male lions at the Masai paintings area. I am glad we noticed them first, as we might have had a problem on our hands had we exited the vehicle too early.

We had to fill up the vehicles at Seronera, as we were running low on fuel. I thought we would be at the lodge by noon, however we decided to stop at a watering hole to watch the huge herds of zebras and wildebeest come in to drink. We definitely found a HUGE chunk of the migration right in the middle of the Serengeti. I always like to have 2 camp locations when I visit the Serengeti, as you never know where the migration is going to be. The herds we saw today in the Seronera valley were fairly substantial, and I know how many we saw down near Kusini yesterday, which means the migration is splintered right now. It’s a really cool sight to see.

I really like to drag the shutter on these types of shots, however I decided to go for the fast shutter speeds this afternoon to try something new. I think it worked, and I am happy with the results.

Safari Update - Serengeti

We were out early this morning (duh), and we headed towards the open plains towards Ndutu. Since we are on the Serengeti side of the border, I suspected we wouldn’t run into many people at all today. Well, I was right, because Kusini is the only camp in the southern Serengeti National Park. There are many many camps and also a few lodges on the Ngorongoro Conservation Area side, but the two management areas really don’t have many people that move back and forth between the two, as the costs and logistics can get more than messy. I find it is easiest to make a decision which side to stay on and then just do it.

Other than our vehicles, there are only 2 others in the entire southern part of the Serengeti right now. You can really feel all of the area has been set aside for just us.

When we entered the open plains, we noticed a few lions who were walking towards a sizable water source. After about 30 seconds, we all noticed there were actually 12 lions in total, with adult females and subadult males and female. They were all running around, jumping all over each other with joy. It was great to have good subjects in the early morning light.

After a while, we noticed there were some hyaenas congregating for a huge standoff with the lions. One by one, the hyaena numbers went from 2 to 3, to 10, to 12 and then ultimately to 17. It was interesting watching their behavior, as they encircled the lions. I could tell there wouldn’t be a fight, but it was clear that the hyaenas weren’t going to let the lions take advantage of them in any way.

We followed the lions for about 2 hours, and left them when they finally settled down underneath the shade of a large acacia tree. We then drove around on the open plains, looking for interesting subjects. I thought it would be fun to try and get ostrich images, so we worked with a small group of them for probably 30 minutes. The problem with them is that they run away when you get close to them. My goal was to get them to run in the same direction our Land Rover was heading, but we didn’t have any luck today. Not a big deal, because watching them is good enough for me.

We went back to camp for a wonderful lunch, and then headed back out around 3:30. Again, we went to the open plains. We did follow a large herd of giraffes for a long time, and eventually they were tired of us and ran away. I decided to try and get them running, while bouncing around in our Land Rover at 40mph off-road. Oh joy!

Safari Update - Serengeti

We drove around the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater early this morning, and as we lost elevation on the way down to the Serengeti plains we lost the green vegetation and cool highlands air. There is a section of whistling thorn acacia bushes that routinely have grazing giraffes, and today had a very nice congregation of them on both sides of the road. As a side note, I love shooting them in this area, as I am able to put the Serengeti plains as the backdrop.

We had some water on some of the roads heading down, and I can definitely feel that the long rains are almost here. It did rain both evenings when we were at Gibbs Farm, and it rained when we were in Ngorongoro, and now signs of recent rain in the southeastern Serengeti. Good news, for sure.

We made it to the Ndutu area in the late morning, and we ate a picnic lunch under a large acacia tree, which overlooked Lake Masek and its flamingos. After lunch the cyclone of water began. I mean really began. We had a solid wall of water around the swamps west of Ndutu, and our vehicles were sliding sideways because of the heavy rain and mud. I haven’t been in a rain like that in many years, and it was awesome.

The drive from Ndutu to Kusini was, well, interesting. The solid wall of rain and wind followed us almost the entire way, and I wasn’t able to take a single image today. Not a single image. The rain was so hard it would have ruined all of my gear, so it wasn’t worth it.

The Kusini area has some amazing granite kopjes, and the Kusini Camp is settled on top of one. We arrived around 5pm, as we couldn’t continue our game drive any longer due to the rain. Since arrived before sunset, we all showered and came and enjoyed one of the most amazing sundowner dinks on top of their central kopje. The staff placed large pillows near top for each of us to sit on, and hoisted up a drink cart for the serving of drinks. It is the small touches that matter in the hospitality industry, and the staff here have it nailed to a ‘T’.

After our gorgeous sunset, we had appetizers around the fire, and finished with dinner in the dining room. Not much else to add, other than today was a great day, even though I didn’t take a single photograph.

Serengeti Safari Update #3

Today is day 3 of our safari, and we are all settling into the routine nicely. We are all up early and we aren’t lagging behind to leave camp early, and this always helps in getting the best shots. Today we drove down to the Gol Kopjes in the southeastern part of the park, which is a great location to be remote and to locate hunting cheetahs.

We drove towards the Simba Kopjes first, and decided to spend time with hippos first off the bat. We got out of the vehicles and sat down in the grass with our long lenses in hand. The hippos were active, which made for some great yawning photographs. I absolutely love observing hippo behavior, as it is a challenge to learn much in only a few minutes. After a while, one can learn quite a bit about each individual.

We checked in at Naabi gate before heading off to the Gol Kopjes, and we spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon amongst a large herd of wildebeest, zebra, thompson gazelle, grant’s gazelle and eland. We paused for a while to witness a birth of a grant’s gazelle, and wondered at how a newborn can know exactly what to do with regards to nursing. Nature is so amazing.

We had a private picnic under a large acacia tree, with the Serengeti plains all around us. Truly spectacular to see in all directions and see very few trees, tons of wildlife and clouds that touch the horizon.

After our time at the Gol Kopjes, we decided to drive to the Moru Kopjes to intercept what we thought would be a nicely sized group of wildebeest. We had watched a large line walk towards the area in the morning, so we wanted to go check it out.

The afternoon was very quiet, even though we counted 8 lions, with 2 of them mating. All was fairly still, and as stubborn as I am, I did not want to give up. Even the bird life was slow. We did watch a zebra become a meal for 50-odd vultures, which was probably the highlight of the afternoon.

As a side note, as of today we have now seen 42 lions in 3 days. Not bad. I am not sure why I count, actually. I was an accountant in my prior life, so maybe that is the reason. The reality is that my favorite subjects to photograph are giraffe and elephants, and not the big cats. They are all important in my mind, and all worthy of photographing. I just understand the value big cat photographs play in my customers’ minds, and I totally get it.

Serengeti safari update

Today we were up at 5:45, ate a hot breakfast and were out of camp by 6:30. Sunrise was close to 7, so we had some time to get out of camp in time to find a subject in the warm morning light.

The group was split into two, as half left an hour earlier to make it to the hot air balloon liftoff location. The rest of us went on a game drive as normal.

We worked the area near Makoma Hill, in hopes of getting a shot of zebras in the foreground with the 3 hot air balloons in the background. Our timing was off, so we weren’t able to make it happen. We had great general game viewing all morning, and worked our way towards the Masai Kopjes towards lunchtime.

After the Masai Kopjes, we kept heading east and south to the Barafu Kopjes in time for a picnic lunch. I absolutely love picnics in the bush, and this one was no exception.

For the rest of the afternoon, we had more lions, a lone female cheetah, and a large herd of elephant. And, of course, all of the general game that we could ask for.

Today was a long day, and my being tired from jetlag doesn’t help as I write the post. More to follow tomorrow.

Serengeti Safari Update

Today we ate a leisurely breakfast at our lodge in Arusha, and took off for the airstrip shortly afterwards. The drive through Arusha was slow going, as the hustle and bustle of the once-frontier town is now a city with over a million people. I remember back in 2002 when I could drive through Arusha in about 20 minutes. It isn’t so easy now, as the safari industy is much more developed now.

After boarding our private plane, I felt a sense of relief over me. I was finally heading back to the Serengeti. I had not been back since March of last year. Earlier in my photo safari business, I used to run 6 safaris each year in Tanzania alone. Now that my business has grown, and my customers are asking for more locations and experiences, I have to split my time between Tanzania, Botswana, South Africa, Kenya, Rwanda and Namibia. So it was great to heading back to the Serengeti, where I really cut my teeth and learned how to run a well-run photo safari.

The flight took around 45 minutes, and we landed at the Seronera airstrip where the Thomson Safaris guides were waiting for us with smiles on. Kileo, my head guide, greeted me as his brother.

The savannah did not look very dry, rven though there hasn’t been much rainfall. There was a rain a few days ago, and I guess it was enough to make the plains green. We immediately went out on our game drive, and we had some early successes. Without naming all of the species, we had a lion pride of 5 adults, a leopard and some great scenics of the open plains with zebras.

We checked into camp around lunch time, and as we went to our tents I could hear mumblings like “this isn’t camping” and “if my wife saw these accommodations she would say I wasn’t camping”. You see, I don’t know how to properly describe the accommodations. Technically they are mobile tents that are setup for the season, however down comforters, solar light fixtures, en suite shower and bathroom are not consistent with the word camping. Such as it is, my travelers loved it. Home away from home. And maybe one day I will have the words to describe what these camps look and feel like.

After a hearty lunch, we took off for our afternoon game drive at 3:30. We decided to try our luck with the Makoma Hill area, and tracked down another pride of lions, 8 in total. There were 3 subadult males, and they were at the age where they won’t be allowed in the pride any longer. They are growing up and will need to have a pride of their own soon.

The rest of the afternoon was filled with another amazing leopard sighting, and this time she was only a short distance away in a tree (see image). I prefer dramatic lighting, so we positioned the vehicle to shoot directly into the sun. I love this angle, and it requires shooting in manual mode with some significant exposure compensation. I can live with lens flare, to be honest, as it can add another dimension to an image.

We also photographed 2 adult male cheetahs on a termite mound, and I had a devil of a time trying to get the second male to do anything other than show his back to the camera. Cheetahs are regal and graceful, and I could never get used to shooting them through a lens. The light wasn’t the best, but it was an enjoyable time, nonetheless (I think my friend Hari will ask me about my cheetah sightings when I get home, so this is a reminder for me to remember all of them!).

On the way back to camp, we stopped to watch a herd of giraffes browse just outside of camp. I didn’t come away with any useful images, as I was just starting to get used to a square crop on the camera. With the square crop lines in place, I have realized that I don’t need as much lens as I tought I would need. I am probably needing at least 100mm less focal length to make it all work.

After dinner we all headed straight to bed, as the previous 48 hours was filled with travel and an assault on the senses. Today was one of those days that reminded me of how much I love being out on safari: great wildlife, guides that are good friends, rich photography and that feeling of being in the middle of nowhere.

Photo of the Day - Serengeti Wildebeest

Wildebeest Migration

Serengeti National Park, Tanzania

Canon 1DsMkIII, 400mm f/4 DO + 1.4x, 1/1000 @ f/5.6, ISO 400