Brendon's Report:There have been many fires in the area and when we left this morning in our small boats the sun was just beginning to rise. The smoke from the fires has created a thick band across the horizon and successfully keeps the sun's rays very soft until quite late in the morning, creating ideal conditions for our photography. We traveled down a side channel and were delighted to find a large number of Spoonbills and shortly after a Skimmer nesting site on the banks. The Skimmers were flying, gliding just above the water line and swooping into the air - great for photos!A large group of Malachite Kingfishers kept us really busy for quite some time. They were building nests and there was fierce competition between them as they scrapped for territorial rights and for females. The action as they challenged and chased each other was quite captivating.If I had to...
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Blog posts tagged in On Safari
Brendon's Report:There have been many fires in the area and when we left this morning in our small boats the sun was just beginning to rise. The smoke from the fires has created a thick band across the horizon and successfully keeps the sun's rays very soft until quite late in the morning, creating ideal conditions for our photography. We traveled down a side channel and were delighted to find a large number of Spoonbills and shortly after a Skimmer nesting site on the banks. The Skimmers were flying, gliding just above the water line and swooping into the air - great for photos!A large group of Malachite Kingfishers kept us really busy for quite some time. They were building nests and there was fierce competition between them as they scrapped for territorial rights and for females. The action as they challenged and chased each other was quite captivating.If I had to...
It was a glorious day as we headed out to see what the african bush was going to present to us . we picked up the tracks of a leopard soon after leaving camp and spent some time tracking it through drainage lines and thick bush , and eventually our persistence paid off .....
One of the high lights was the secretary bird that caught a puff adder and was busy eating on it.
Even though we haven’t been able to catch a river crossing yet, Day 2 of the ODP Masai Mara safari produced some fantastic photographic opportunities . We started out photographing some impala fighting in perfect morning light, then had 3 different lion and 3 different cheetah sightings. Due to some rain the previous night, a lot of the dams were overflowing and many cat fish were washed out, struggling in overflows to get back to the main bodies of water, attracted and produced some fantastic photographic opportunities of raptors taking advantage and preying on the struggling cat fish. We had a lovely break and and awesome lunch under a big fig tree and later on our way back we found 2 hippo fighting. Our day was perfectly ended off with a display of Masai dancing and scrumptious food prepared for us by the &Beyond staff. ...
I have just spent 3 days on a ODP private tutoring Safari at Sabi Sabi were we covered the practical aspects of wildlife photography on the game drives and then spent time on Light room and Photo Shop after breakfast .
(click on image to view bigger) Our first safari on board the Nguni Voyager has kick-off this year. The Chobe region is looking fantastic and the bird life is even better than before. The African Skimmers are unbelievable this year with some breath taking opportunities coming our way...! We almost spent our entire 4 days hunting these elusive and highly prized gems of the avian world..! The result... Spectacular..!! Look out for some more hot action from the banks of the Chobe River!...
The morning drive started off once again very well in great weather and some fantastic light. Not long after leaving the lodge we found lion tracks and started tracking, while on the tracks we came across 5 hyaena walking along the same tracks as the lions which made us think the lions had make a kill and the hyaenas are on the scent. After about half an hour of tracking and following the hyaenas we found the Tsalala pride of lions and as soon as they got wind of the hyaenas following them we had a great sightng of lions chasing hyaneas but no photographic opportunities arose. However shortly after dispersing the hyaenas they made their way into a large open area and proceeded to chase each other around and play as young sub adults do, this produced some fantastic photographic opportunities in some amazing light! After leaving the lions, we...
Today once again our safari got off to a lovely start with great weather and some beautiful sunshine. We managed to find the female leopard Salayexe and spent some great time with her, firstly watching her stalking a small herd of Nyala, but they soon got her wind and dashed off. She then gave us some great photographic opportunities and a number of walk bys before she dropped down in to the Manyaleti drainage line and we were unable to follow her. Our afternoon safari got off to a slow start, we ended up at a small dam where we had a lot of fun shooting the resident hippo as he put on a display for us, as well as the couple of hammerkops that were flying around. Photo by Hilton Kotze Once the light got really good we decided to go take our chances and look around in the area...
Well the second safari got off to a reasonable start. We had sightings of 4 different leopards on the first afternoon drive, A skittish male that was not very relaxed with the vehicles, Mafufunyane, Salayexe and Mhati, although only the sightings of Mafufunyane and Mhati produced decent photographic opportunities, fun was had by all and everyone got some great images. We hope that the next few days will be as rewarding and better, we are definitely looking forward to them. More updates to come soon, from Brendon and Hilton on safari at Elephant Plains....
Well the morning still had a slight winter chill in the air but it was only short lived and as soon as the sun rose, the weather was clear and warm. The morning produced a great sighting, the Tsalala pride of lions was found literally seconds after they had killed an impala, but it was devoured with in seconds between the 5 lionesses, but the guests managed to get off a few decent images. On the afternoon drive, it started off very quite and we did a lot of tracking of leopards and eventually found the female Kwatile in the late afternoon, she was walking across a dame wall more than likely on her evening patrol. She spotted a Steenbok and after a half harted chase we were able to pull off some great images. This morning, the final morning of the first groups safari was once again in great weather, however...
