June Photography Course with Tom Svensson

              Picture Africa's June Wildlife Photography Course

 www.picture-africa.com

www.zanewildphoto.com 

 www.tomsvensson.se

 

Finally our June Course has arrived and we have 7 very enthusiastic guests with a range of abilities. Course leaders are Tom Svensson and Myself.

 First day

We had a welcome Braai on the first night with T-bone steaks! there was also a vegetarian options for those non Carnivores . The trip was explained and now we are all set for our 2 week adventure.

Day Two

Waking up nice and early the course Started with Tom taking the more advanced guests out for a walk in the bush looking for Birds to photograph. Whilst i stayed back and gave a lesson for the guests wanting to get some extra tuition on their cameras, before going out to join the rest of the  group out in the bush. 

                  Some of the guests walking through the bush looking for birds.(Ulf & Matis)

Sightings:

- Bateleur eagles

- Vervet monkeys

- African Fish Eagle juv

- black collared barbet

- male Cardinal woodpecker

- Various other birds including ciisticola's, crombec's and sun birds.  

The Afternoon was spent getting ourselves prepared for the next few weeks photography so cameras where charged and memory cards formatted.

Day Three

Full day Selati game reserve, Pick up was 7am for a pretty cold start to the morning but with the sun being out we warmed up fast and where off to try and find the lions. The collared female had been darted a week earlier so the lions had not been seen since as they were still nervous. 

Our plan was to use bate and call her in with a recorded caller. 

The researches brought a baby warthog which had drowned and we used this poor little piggy as our bait.

Guests walking over the bridge because it can't support us all the the vehicle!

Here comes our guide and researcher Adam

Adam Hoisting the warthog into the tree to bait the lions

 We waited for around an hour for the lions to come the the bait and calls but they did not move any closer to we decided to go for a drive and come back to check on the bait later.

One of the many animals we came across on our drive that day a lovely male giraffe.

Lizard buzzard taking off

A blind snake is  one of the unusual creatures we came across

female leopard track is one of the tracks we found, also finding rhino,lion and hyena spoor all over the place

Young impala ram

Waterbuck herd

We returned to the lion bait but had no luck so we tried for elephant in the afternoon but we just could find the animals we wanted on the is day.

It was a day for antelope

Species:

- Waterbuck

- Impala

- Warthog

- Kudu

- Rock Hyrax

- Eland

- Giraffe

- slender mongoose

- tree squirrels

- Lapped face vulture

- white backed vulture

- Gabar goshawk

- lizard buzzard

- little sparrowhawk

- blue waxbills

- grey go away bird

- hornbill's ( various) 

And many more species where spotted but nothing to note apart from a rock hyrax in the middle of the road and not near any koppies? 

Day Four

Today we left the Lodge at 8am ( there guys are getting it easy!) and made our way to the reserve we use to get Predator images.

I hadn't let to much on to the guests so i was quietly confident of the experience we where about to have.

And it didn't disappoint! we had an incredible day with some amazing animals.

First things first, met our guide for the day Chris and i organised the days events with him to give us the best shots possible.

 So we decided to go in with the Female king cheetah first. This rare genetic variant creates a cheetah which has long stripes along its back. 

She will be used for breeding in the future and the boys are already showing a lot of interest.

Our beautiful subject the King cheetah

Guests getting images of the King cheetah

We then proceeded to the Wild dog Bongo who had a back injury and cannot be released back into the wild.

Bongo curious as to who is invading his territory

Guests photographing the wild dog as he circles us.

Look at those teeth!

Once we had finished with bongo the wild dog we decided to try find the two male cheetah which are out in the bush hunting somewhere. But we didn't have to go far as they found us. 

both going into the enclosure with the female King cheetah to say hello.

hard being a celebrity 

cheetah brothers relaxing

something is wrong here how did we end up in the enclosure with the animal looking at us!

After all our fun with the animals in enclosures we thought lets had a go at finding some wild ones!

so off to track the lions.

After some serious off roading and some scratches from the numerous thorn bushes we found the pride. they were full after a kill the previous day but still fairly active. 

buffalo herd we found whilst looking for lions

finally the lions! only the male presented himself for a photograph

Getting annoyed at our presence so we left him to relax

Okay after our warning from the male lion we made our way back to the lodge to have a big lunch and be read for the afternoon.
 Right after lunch we had a small session with a female caracal who was very sweet but didn't play ball as well as we had hoped.

caracal in a marula tree

caracal with Johanna

Showing us how agile she is

Me and Chris decided it would be best to try for the elephants as it was to hot for the cats and the wind meant the animals where more shy than usual.
We spent a while looking for the elephants and where rewarded with a small herd which had a bull and two cows with a small calf.

Elephants use their tusks when feeding and here you can see the end is almost worn off from using it to break branches

calf playing with mother in laws tongue

elephants drinking in front of game viewer

Bull drinking at the dam

The herd where scared by some warthog that came down to drink, what a bunch of wimps!

Now it was time to go and see the lion camp and the leopards. so we made our way down to see if they where in the mood to be photographed or not.
and we were met with some great light in the afternoon.

Male lion in the lion camp was being nice at first

he sat around the cubs and just watched us

this all changed and he confronted us with a growl and a very intimidating charge up to the fence shortly after this image

Taking the charge as our Que we moved on to the leopards as the sun was going down fast as only it does in Africa.

We were treated with amazing light and some very compliant leopards

Leopard went up and down the tree's several times showing off for us

As the sun was setting we got some silhouette shots

Just about to make the leap to the top

We had just enough time to go and see the old lion a male who is 20 years old and he was amazing even roared for us and only being a few meters away it was bone shakingly loud!

Old male roaring for us

last image taken before it became dark

Over all was a brilliant day and we are all very tired now! thank god for the rest day where we can sort out images.

Sightings:

- Lions
- cheetah
- Leopard
- caracal
- Elephant
- giraffe
- kudu
- warthog
- steenbok

Actually there was to much to mention you will just have to join us on a trip so see what we find on our days out!

Keep checking the blog as i will update it as often as i can

Off to Kruger in two days then a snake photo day before a bush sleep out.

Day Five

Finally a break! we got to spend the day sorting out images and making sure our editing was going going well.
Tom gave a lecture on Lightroom which was nice because as a photoshop man i could use some more knowledge on the use of lightroom. We were very lazy and spent the whole day behind the computers sorting through the thousands of images we have from the past few days.
And something very strange happened. There was Clouds! which is not a usual sight for winter but it did mean that the night was nice and warm.

Day Six

Off to Kruger we go with some very high expectations i was hoping for a great day. Pick up was at 5:30 so a nice early start to the day to get the early morning light.

Everybody ready for a great day in Kruger

But unfortunately the morning didn't start has we had planned and it turned into a case of starting at mopane for a long time! with no rewards.  Myself and Tom got a quick shot at a leopard but it wasn't good enough sighting to get images from.

Spot the leopard! he was very shy and didn't hang around

But from here on we moved south of Letaba and into the more open areas of Satara.
Where we heard of several lion sightings which the guests managed to find just before lunch with a couple of lazy lionesses no showing more than a toe.

Even at lunch there is things to photograph, Matis was loving the birds

 The Afternoon picked up and at the end of it all the guests found the Big 5 and lots more animals showed themselves on the way to Orpen gate.
But over all not a bad first day in Kruger for them we have two more trips to try and get some more great shots.

Here are some of mine from the day as we ambled along.

The most numerous animals in the park but still beautiful to me

Waterbuck standing proud

Little African  scops owl who is always at Satara to great guests.(sleeping on the Job)

Gabar goshawk hunting

Bateleur eagle taking off to go and look for prey

Black back Jackal stopped long enough for a shot

Young elephant in the road

Elephant cow Close up when she was feeding next to the road

Buffalo in the road as we left Kruger as the light was fading so tried a panning shot

We had a great day with some nice sightings but Kruger was quieter than usual. Hopefully it will be more active next time.

Species:

- Lion
- leopard
- Elephant
- Buffalo
- Rhino
- Jackal
- Hyrax 
- Martial eagle
- Lapped faced vulture
-  Pearl spotted owlet

And many many more species 

Next to Kamai reptile park...