Day Three

Another early start to the day as usual for wildlife photographers, Tip if you want to get into the industry learn to love early morning it is some of the best light and best for wildlife.

Our morning was to be filled with a game drive around the largest game reserve in Uganda.
Murchison National park is Approx 3,800 square km which is fairly large.
The wildlife was good but the after effects of the staughter that took place during Idi Amin's reign is still obvious with the lack of many key species such as Rhino and much less bio diversity than you would expect.

The bird life is still good and there is many animals but not a huge variety mainly the Ugandan Kob, Oribi, Rothchild's Giraffe, Elephant, lion and Buffalo but there still is leopards and some other smaller creatures from warthogs and smaller nocturnal animals.

One animal i forgot to mention above is the Jackson Hartebeest a typically ugly member of the Hartebeest family but still begs to be looked at

Abyssinian Hornbill chilling on the stump of a Palm tree over looking the plains

My first time to see the Endangered Rothschild Giraffe it is a beautiful as the rest of the subspecies and always a guest favorite

The ever presant symbol of the bush (well in my eyes) a Cape buffalo looks on with a Piapiac sat on his back

Not so friendly Elephant cow investigates us as she is feeding but soon looses interest

Ugandan Oribi another first and just as cute as all the cousins not that this little buck will appreciate the cute comment

Ugandan Kob are everywhere i am surprised i could get a shot of an individual although i am sure there are more in the background.

As the game drive continue we kept finding more and more Kob! also found their rutting grounds but decided to go and look at what was around the water and get out to stretch the legs

Our vehicle looking bad ass in the open Savannah with the roof up. Myself and Julie perched on the roof at the back for a good view whilst driving around

Nice bull giraffe looks on in the distance.

Spur winged Plover walking on the edges of the lake i just like the trial of droplets following his foot

Who do we have here another buffalo! in mud as usual

We didn't stay long at the water because we got the call that there was a lion about so we jumped back in the vehicle to search for the cat.
after a short drive we came to the place we had passed earlier and lying under a bush was a male lion.
He is well known to our ranger as he lost his leg in a snare two years! earlier and still living and hopping about living off the food his brother supplies.

which is quiet an incredible survival story.
Here he is and some of the stuff we saw on the way back for lunch

A short glimpse before sleeping again. this guy is a true warrior still going strong on 3 legs

Big guns getting some good images of the male lion sleeping in the road

How about a lower angle with the 300mm lenses

About to perform the flehmen grimace as she tests her urine for her sexual status

One of the shots i always like to play with is panning and here is a Male kob chasing his ladies around

A rare leusistic form of the Ugandan Kob. Note the black eye meaning he is not an Albino  but amazing he made it to adulthood

Sorry Emil the big guns have taken over as Tom and Magnus see how magnified they can get the stubborn bull elephant.

And here is the takeoff of the very large Abyssinian hornbill

Young hornbill about to land

This stroppy bull decided he was going to sit in the road and despite me asking the guide to move past they showed him a lot more respect than the what we do in South Africa. Maybe they had a bad elephant experience.

Just before getting back to the lodge we found a dark chanting goshawk waiting on a perch for some prey to appear.

 Don't worry this is not the end of our day O no that is not how we do it on a Zane safari after lunch we embark on a boat cruise along the Nile to Murchison Falls to see it from the bottom.
Sorry i have no images of the lodge i was to busy going other things but just look up Paraa lodge if you want to see our accommodation.

Boat cruise on the nile to the food of Murchison Falls after a good lunch at the lodge we set off for a short trip to the boat.
Upon arrival we were met by some elephants on the shore line and lazy hippos keeping cool in the water with just the top of their heads showing.

Getting some shots of the Elephants before we board the boat. i have no idea what that large flying thing is in the picture looks like a large beetle?

Don't worry he isn't annoyed at us i made sure we kept a safe distance this guy was just fanning himself with those huge ears

The ferry we have to use to get across the river to our lodge or to get of this side of the park.

All aboard! 

I must say the guides on the boats were very good only issue is with the noise of the boat they are hard to hear even with the speakers.
But they were very knowledgeable and polite
Okay on with the cruise.

Making a splash. This stretch of rive has one of the highest densities of hippo i have ever seen

Albert looking cool as usual and Thomas looking for birds but i am not sure about Julie maybe about to sneeze?

Even in this heat some sun bathing was taking place for some of the animals

you could get so close on the boat it was unreal and the hippos were not bothered

classic hippo yawning shot, should have heard the shutters go mad when this happened i was like a war zone

Even a pygmy hippo! what is with this place and the white gene? maybe that is why this is called the white nile. are the animals on the blue nile, blue?

well you may think we only saw hippo's from the above images but never fear we saw many different species.
Here are some of them

striking colours of the Red throated bee-eater

Grey headed kingfisher looking for water insects to feed on

African fish eagle waiting for some poor fish to surface

what would the rivers be with the annoying chatter or the Egyptian geese

red throated bee eaters nesting in the banks

big male Black and White colobus has a staring contest (i won)

Peek a boo

After the monkeys we got as close as we could to the falls and stopped for the guide to explain the history of the falls.
and was amazing to see them from the bottom and whiteness the power of nature. As corny as that sounds i cannot think of another way to describe it.

Wide angle to show you the view we had but it does not do the sound and scene justice.

you can see the power of the water as it crashes through the narrow gap at the bottom of the falls

Just another portrait of the falls

On the way back there was stuff to see and there were baboons to great us with their naughty antics when we returned to shore.

some of the largest crocs anywhere in Africa are in the Nile and this large male was huge about 17ft with his head about as long and wide as a mans torso!

fish eagle nest on the bank

Baboon having a good look if anyone left something tasty un-guarded

Male Olive baboon with that look in his eye, you can just imagine what he is thinking and looking for a opportunity to get a meal.

'Right time to go and raid some more' says mister baboon.

This was it for our day in Murchison falls national park and we headed back for a sun downer beer in the pool and dinner.
Then a early night to await our trip to Kibale tomorrow or the chimps.

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...