Wild Dogs – Jennifer Sawicky Photography

January 7, 2024January 7, 2024

2024-01-07: Wild Dogs

Like elephants (featured in my previous post), wild dogs are a firm favourite to spend time with on safari. I’ve been so fortunate to see wild dogs on the majority of my trips (East Africa in 2016 being the only time I didn’t see them) – which I know is not the experience of most people. My very first guide cautioned me about getting my hopes up to see wild dogs, mentioning that she had talked to clients who had never seen them despite multiple trips, but I have looked at the desire to see things in the wild as a someday request, not something that will make or break a specific trip (and I did end up seeing wild dogs on that first trip, during a day trip in Chobe Park in Botswana).

I spent a few days in Madikwe during my last trip and saw two different wild dogs packs on a couple of different sightings. A morning sighting where the group was active and on the move, and an evening sighting where the pack was quite chill. All of the photos below are from the evening sighting. If you are interested in seeing the other images of wild dogs posted from this trip, you can find them here and here. And you can use the search bar for wild dog posts and find a variety of posts from over the years. I’ve not looked through those archives, but I am guessing they all mention how lucky I am to see wild dogs so frequently.

March 26, 2023March 26, 2023

2023-03-26: Wild Dogs

I selected a few more images from my wild dog sighting this past November to share today. I’d previously posted a few wild dogs images from this trip, which you can find here if you missed them. There are also lots of images in my archives of wild dogs, which can be found with the search function, if desired.

This first image is to show how well camouflaged animals are in the bush, even when the vegetation is not particularly dense. This sighting was at sunset, and we knew the location of the dogs and approached from off road. We weren’t that far off the road, maybe 15 or 20 feet, but had we been on the road and unaware of the dogs location, we likely would have driven right by them.

These dogs were part of same pack and also seen at dusk. These individuals were getting ready to be on the move, and just waiting for the other members to move off. There were five dogs in total in that sighting.

The other sighting I had was mid morning, and quite an adventure to get to. The other people on my vehicle had decided to sleep in, so I was off just with my guide, and we were both happy to see what we could see, and find what we could find. We had a call from another guide that he’d found a pack of dogs, and we ended up traveling off-road over very rocky terrain, up fairly steep hills. These was concern that a wrong turn could damage the vehicle, so it was slow going, but eventually we ended up with the dogs. They were on the move which added challenge to finding them, and they were in dense bush which didn’t provide too many photo opportunities. But even an obscured sighting of wild dogs is an incredible experience.

February 19, 2023February 19, 2023

2023-02-19: Wild Dogs

I’ve never been shy about sharing my love of wild dogs, and it was thrilling to have the chance to spend time with two different packs during my recent trip to South Africa. Today though, I am short on time so I’ve only edited one image, but I’ll be back with more and some info on the sightings in the coming weeks.

March 24, 2021March 21, 2021

2021-03-24: Wordless Wednesday

March 22, 2021March 21, 2021

2021-03-22: Monochrome Monday

Continuing on with the wild dogs, here is a pack greeting after they had all just awoken from an afternoon of napping.

Have a great week everyone!

March 21, 2021March 21, 2021

2021-03-21: Wild Dogs

I saw a video clip on the Africa Geographic Facebook page a couple of days ago of a sighting of a wild dog pack, including loads of puppies, crossing a road. I’ve never seen wild dog puppies (yet!) but I have been fortunate to have frequent sightings of them. Watching that clip made me want to return to Southern Africa immediately, but since that isn’t feasible, going through my catalogue for the few remaining unedited wild dog photos will have to do.

I had a couple brief sightings of wild dogs last trip, here are a few of the images. More to come later in the week 🙂

July 12, 2020July 12, 2020

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 🙂

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.

April 5, 2020

2020-04-05: Sunrise to sunset during safari

I’m working on a guest post for a friend doing an Armchair safari series, and thought I would share the images here as well. I decided that the theme of my post would be sunrise to sunset on safari; showcasing images from dawn till dusk while out in the bush. These are all shot during my last trip to South Africa and were from all of the camps that I stayed at. I would have to plan a lot more in advance while out in the field to have a sunrise to sunset images from a single day (note to self, do that next trip!).

Rather than a highlight reel of amazing sightings, these are just a collection of moments out in the bush.

I hope you enjoy.

6am - Lions — 6am – Lions. Two of the Torchwood Pride greet each other.

7am - Hyena and Impala — 7am – Hyena and Impala. A group of impala look on wearily as a hyena approaches down the road.

8am - Elephants — 8am – Elephants. A pair of youngsters tussle while the older elephants graze nearby.

9am - Giraffe — 9am – Giraffe. A giraffe bull paused in the road allowing me to capture this image while on the way back to camp for breakfast.

10am - Waterbuck — 10am – Waterbuck. A waterbuck heads towards the dam for a drink.

11am - Hippos — 11am – Hippos. A group of hippos making their way back to the water to beat the midday heat.

12pm - Hornbill — 12pm – Yellow-billed hornbill. A “flying banana” perched just beyond the deck at camp.

1pm - Infrared Landscape — 1pm – Landscape in infrared. Midday was a great time to wander around camp with my infrared filter and play around with long exposure photos. This was shot from the deck at Lion Sands Tinga Lodge.

2pm - Purple Crested Turaco — 2pm – Purple Crested Turaco. I tried for ages to capture a good image of this beautiful bird from my balcony, but given they like to be deep in the branches, it really wasn’t meant to be. It was a fun way to spend part of the afternoon though.

3pm - Cheetah — 3pm – Cheetah. We’d only been out on game drive for about 10 minutes when we came across this cheetah, and had the chance to watch her stalking some impala. They spotted her right away so supper wasn’t in her immediate future.

4pm - Wild Dog — 4pm – Wild Dog. Spending time with wild dogs always makes my heart happy. We had a good half an hour with them before they took off in all directions, setting out to hunt.

5pm - Honey Badgers — 5pm – Honey Badgers. I had always wanted to see honey badgers and on my first game drive of the trip I finally had my chance. It only lasted about 30 seconds but it certainly was thrilling, even if all I could get were butt shots!

6pm - Leopard — 6pm – Leopard. We were heading back to camp for drinks and dinner and came across this leopard heading in to this large puddle to drink. It was a quick stop before the leopard was on its way.

January 5, 2020

2020-01-05: Artistic Impressions

It’s the start of a new year, and I’ve not come up with any grand plans for the blog. In addition to my full time work, I’m starting graduate school and courses towards a professional designation, so I have decided to leave things open for the time being, until I see what type of time and energy I have. I am hoping to continue on with my Sunday, Monday and Wednesday posting schedule, but I may not end up picking themes for each month, and instead, just go where the mood takes me. I’m just going to play it by ear for the moment.

I’ve continued to be inspired to play around with my artistic impression images, and have a few of those to share today.

I’ve still not had any success with moving over to Topaz Studio version 2. When I have played around with it, I have really liked the flow within the program, but have found it challenging to get photos in and out of the software, with my current workflow. Thankfully, the original version is still working well within my system.

That’s all for today; wishing everyone a fantastic week ahead.

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