Category: South Africa

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2020-07-20: Monochrome Monday

This cheetah was a surprise during a game drive; to be honest, cheetah are never really on my radar when in the Sabi Sands, so every sighting of them is a bonus.

A female cheetah who was about to set off on a (failed) hunting attempt. Seen while staying at Chitwa Chitwa lodge in South Africa, May 2019.
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2020-07-12: Wild Dogs

Much like elephants, I have posted many, many times about my love of wild dogs. They are amazing animals to spend time with, and the more I learn about them, the more I like them.

I was super fortunate on my last trip to see two different packs at two different camps. The sightings were very different; one had us with them as they awoke from a day of napping and set off on the hunt, and the second had us finding them late morning, getting ready to rest away part of the day in the cooler shade of a dry riverbed.

I look through my images and dream now, more than ever, of having the opportunity to travel back to my favourite places again sometime soon.

I’ve posted lots of other wild dog images in the past. You can find them through a keyword search, or check out one of these posts. Some of these go right back to the very start of this blog 🙂

Zimanga Game Reserve

Wild Dogs

Even More Wild Dogs

Wild Dogs at Play

A group of wild dogs greeting and playing after waking up from an afternoon nap.
Setting off on the hunt. We lost them very soon after this.
A pack of wild dogs resting in a dry riverbed. Even if this was the only sighting you could have of them, it is absolutely worth it to try.
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2020-07-05: Photo Art – Rhinos

For my Dad’s Father’s Day gift, I adopted a blind rhino named Maxwell, being cared for at the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, in his name. Rhino’s were the animal he was most excited to see on our first trip to South Africa, so it seemed like a good fit (and proved to be a very popular gift, as was the elephant I adopted for my Mom for Mother’s Day).

I try to make homemade cards whenever possible, and created these two images to make my Dad’s Father’s Day card. These were done with images I shot my last time in South Africa, using a variety of filters in the Topaz Studio program.

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2020-06-22: Monochrome Monday

Even though it was the rutting season, when males can begin to lose condition from spending all of their time and energy fighting over access to females, this one looked to be in fine form, with a shiny coat and a small herd to call his own… at least for a day or two.

Impala are beautiful animals and definitely interesting to watch while out in the bush. But the sound the males make when they are fighting, that is something else.

An impala ram patrolling at the outskirts of the small herd he had gathered together. South Africa, May 2019.
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2020-06-21: World Giraffe Day

Today is World Giraffe Day, and an opportunity for me to not have to think what to post! I can just share a few images of these adorable and goofy looking animals 🙂

A pair of giraffes in the late afternoon light.
A very interesting, and very sad sighting. This was from my 2017 trip to the Skeleton Coast in Namibia. We found signs of a lion and followed it until we also found drag marks from a kill, and ended up, seeing this mama giraffe holding vigil while her youngster was being dined on by a lone lioness in the bushes. The track marks shows that the giraffe had tried to charge the lioness, but sadly nothing could bring back her calf. I have a few other shots from this sighting that you can find in an older post here.

This image was so brightly coloured it looked like some type of HDR image; so I had to do some serious desaturation to get it to look reasonable. I’m not sure what causes that to happen every once in a while, but it does make for interesting editing. This young giraffe was part of a group of 4 or 5 that were scattered in the trees enjoying some browsing.

Have a great week everyone!

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