Don & Sharon travelled with me for the second time on a long photo safari. Sharon has already sent me a report of the trip, and it’s great to share Don’s with you now. I hope you enjoy reading about our travels to Kafue, Lower Zambezi, South Luangwa and Gonarezhou National Parks. Over to Don:
I thought I would add some of my photos to supplement the story that Sharon’s great selection provided. This was our second trip with Ed, and each experience has not only been exceptional from a wildlife point of view, our photography skills are improving with each adventure.
One of our first encounters was with this wonderful lioness, who despite having lost her right rear foot to a snare, was able to hunt and capture enough food to survive.
Throughout Kafue we were spoilt with leopard sightings, and I liked this one because of the way she blended into the grass, and the look of purpose in her eyes.
We almost drove straight past this great specimen – the battle scars show up really well in the light – if he had managed the time to fully groom his mane he may have even been a little more handsome.
We were hoping to see Sable, and we quickly discovered a herd of over 100 animals – this guy showed a great set of horns!
I was happy with this shot of a serval, taken on the way back to camp. I was lucky that the serval stopped briefly to allow me to take a photo with the help of the spotlight on our vehicle.
The rewards of patience – we sat by a pond watching the interaction amongst a group of hippos – an imposter had settled into the pond, and the dominant male was a little peeved. I was able to get low down to capture the moment that the anger of the dominant male “exploded” and he came charging out of the pond to confront the younger, smaller male who had the audacity to intrude into his domain.
The fight got a little nasty, but this could have ended badly if the big male was really serious.
And then the slobber started, before the smaller male conceded, and the pond became much more tranquil.
Edward insisted that I include some bird photos – here is one.
We came across a wild dog den, and were surprised to see the puppies playing without any adult supervision. This cute little fella was the runt of the litter, but he looked pretty nice in the late afternoon light.
We spent some time looking, unsuccessfully for the hyena den, but this one obviously heard the dinner bell and was racing to get to the table before all the good bits had been eaten.
This photograph was inspired by a similar one on the wall in our accommodation in Harare. It was “high keyed” in post processing, and I think I have a reasonable copy of the image I plagiarised.
We spent a late afternoon on the river, and was able to capture elephants playing in the water as the sun started to sink in the sky. I really liked the sunlight on the elephants hide in this shot.
As we sat watching this leopard playing with her kill up a tree, with Mum watching intently, we though she was going to drop it. She showed amazing strength to catch the falling carcase and drag it back into the fork of the tree where she wedged it to save a lecture from Mum.
One of the techniques that Edward demonstrated to us was shooting into the light. I think this photo shows the great effect that this can achieve. The background shows a beautiful blue “haze” while the back light on the baboon creates a nice halo around the fur.
The dogs are always entertaining. We had a great time following a large pack, and the thunderous sound they made when they all charged after a potential kill was amazing. With so much happening at once, it was difficult to capture it all in photographs, and it was one of those times when we just sat and watched. I thought this photo though showed the start of the hunt – the crouch and concentration before the starter says “go”! The photo shows just how many dogs there were participating (this was only a sub-set of the entire pack) and while it is difficult to see all their heads, it might be easier the count the legs and divide by four.
Towards the end of the hunt – and the buffalo are heading for the safety of the woods. Unfortunately, one of them didn’t make it. This is probably an indication of just how large the dog pack was that they could successfully hunt buffalo.
We saw a few elephants having a dust bath, but this one was a little unusual in that his tusks we almost touching.
One of the special aspects of being on safari with Ed is that nothing will get in the way of getting that “last” shot – not even sundowners. We sat waiting for it to get dark to get a shot of a leopard in a “nest”.
The following images are from the Zimbabwe leg of our adventure. In terms of photographic opportunities, Zimbabwe was a little more challenging than we expected. Access to photograph the wildlife was more restricted, but we probably got spoilt too much in Zambia.
The colours in this woodpecker are just brilliant.
An early bird.
Another bird.
I thought the autumn colours added a nice touch of colour to this shot.
The sun coming through the bill of the hornbill looked pretty cool.
I was really lucky to get this photograph – I just happened to have everything in place when this little ball of fluff poked his head out of the log.
A bit of a fun shot. The only thing these Egyptian Geese are missing is their hat and cane.
This is probably the clichéd shot of Gonarezhou – elephants in the river with the cliffs in the background. We were photographing the bottom group of elephants (from a distance) when the others came down from higher up.
Trying to get some more autumn colours.
This is a nice photo to finish – this leopard was lurking up a tree, out of sight of any “normal” person until Ed spotted it. As we once again sacrificed sundowners, the leopard stood up and was nicely silhouetted against the setting sun. I think it would be helped with a little photoshopping to remove some of distracting branches.
