Tag Archives: safari

Leopard Tracking

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During our stay in Botswana, we spent about a week split between two separate camps in the Okavango Delta. While the first camp was more populated by water buffalo and elephants, the second camp had many more big cats. On one of our last days, our guide spotted a female leopard, and then spotted a juvenile male, who we assumed was the females cub. We spent most of the morning tracking these two through the bush, culminating in the female tracking, hunting and finally catching a squirrel as a snack.

This particular shot was near the end of our tracking, and caught the little male weaving in and out of trees. We stopped near a large tree, in hopes that we could catch him paying on the branches, but no luck, he wasn’t interested. It was really fun to just watch these two as they walked and walked in search of each other, or their next snack.

Nikon D600 | Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 | 200mm | f/3.3 | 1/1500th | ISO800

Chillin’ in the woods

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I’ve heard people say it before. They say Africa gets under your skin. They also say it’s easy to fall in love with. You might find that you get sucked in.  That certainly happened to me.  I absolutely fell in love with Africa.  So much so, I cannot wait to get back.

We spent about 5 days in Tanzania on safari routing through Nairobi on the way in and out.  While we didn’t get to climb Kilimanjaro, we drove through Ngorongoro, the Serengeti and the Maasai Mara National Park.  We’ll have to go back for Kilimanjaro.

Today’s shot is from our first day on safari.  We drove out to a chimp reserve. While we initially got out and walked around, we mostly moved through the park by car.  We came across this guy just hanging out about 15 feet off the road.  He sat there so easy, I’m sure contemplating the more existential questions of life.

Canon Rebel XSi | Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L | 400mm | f/7.1 | 1/400 | ISO500

Zebra Protection

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I promise this is the last zebra pic, for now.  One interesting behavior of zebras is that they stand in twos or threes in opposite directions.  Because they are largely a plains or grassland  animal, they don’t have other natural protections (like hills or mountainsides).  So, to solve that problem and make sure they have eyes in all directions looking out for the likes of lions, hyenas, hunting dogs, leopards, or cheetahs so they don’t become dinner.  Pretty ingenious if you ask me, don’t try to tell me that animals don’t learn!!! 

Canon Rebel XSi | Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L | 105mm | f/5.6 | 1/160th | ISO100

Mama Zebra

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I’m sure I’m not the only one that thinks its sweet when baby animals feed from their mamas.  It’s so sweet.  They have no idea that for the rest of their lives they will be hunted by lions, hyenas, hunting dogs, leopards, and cheetahs until they are in a corner and become someone else’s dinner. It’s so sweet.

Canon Rebel XSi | Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L | 170mm | f/5.6 | 1/200th | ISO160