If you been following my blog for any length of time, I think you’ve probably noticed that I enjoy silhouette photos. Especially of birds. While staying at Chitwa Chitwa, we stopped for a sundowner and just as I picked up my glass of wine, I noticed the vulture in this tree. Actually, there were two, but the photo of both of them didn’t work out so well (perhaps if I had the 150mm-600mm then…)
I’ve included here both the cropped image as shot, with only a pass of Nik’s output sharpener as my editing, and one that has been further enhanced with both Silver Efex and Colour Efex. I’d be interested to know if there are any preferences. I like both (or I wouldn’t post them!).
Have a great evening.
This is the un-enhanced photo.And this is the one that’s had just a little work done.
Londolozi is well known for having amazing leopard sightings, and I certainly had one during my stay, but you’ll have to stay tuned to a future post to hear all about it and see the photos, as that encounter definitely deserves to be a post on its own (as does the Pangolin sighting!!!) 🙂
We had an absolutely fabulous time during our two night stay, and a lot of laughs with our ranger Dave and tracker Judas. I’d be back there tomorrow if I could (I think in fact I asked Phil the camp manager more than once if I could hide myself away somewhere just so I could stay longer).
The following are just a few of the moments that made me smile during my time there; I took over 1500 photos during my stay, so you can be certain you’ll see many more in the coming days and weeks.
This very blog was started after my first trip to Londolozi in 2013. In case you missed those first posts, you can find some of them here (or use the search function at the bottom of my home page to find them all!)
A small group of wildebeest gather around a tree, on a perfect autumn afternoon. 1/1000sec, f10, ISO360A saddle billed stork on one of the sandy bars in the river. 1/1000 sec, f9, ISO 560This photo brings me close to tears; I think it shows what I love best about being out in the bush, just bearing witness to the day to day lives of animals. I absolutely love elephants, and capturing this tender moment when the youngster had a chance to suckle was one of the benefits of parking ourselves in the river and hanging out with this small family. 1/1000sec, f8, ISO 360We parked in the river to watch this small family group drinking and crossing the river. What came next??? 1/1000sec, f8.0, ISO 400We got well and truly stuck! Our position in the river gave us brilliant viewing and photographic opportunities, but unfortunately left the land rover with tires at least half buried in the sand. Dave was so worried that we would be upset at waiting for rescue and being late for breakfast, but we all had an absolute blast; just another part of the safari adventure! 1/1250sec, f16, ISO900The tractor arrived to remove our stuck vehicle from the river; I’m not sure if Dave has lived that one down yet. 1/1250sec, f10, ISO500The result of having to call for rescue, Dave ended up with the dreaded pink ammo pouch. I think it may be good luck though, as we had some amazing sightings after he took possession of it!Even after getting dragged out of the river, Dave still stopped in the sand along the river so I could photograph this beautiful white fronted bee-eater. 1/1250 sec, f10, ISO 1000The morning sky was like a painting, and I was happy just to sit and watch that; stumbling across this herd of elephants made it all the better. 1/640sec, f5, ISO 3600My first attempt at photographing lightning; I set up my camera on the tree camp deck under a patio umbrella, and let the camera do it’s thing on a timer function while I enjoyed wine and dinner. We were out on drive and returned just before the rain started, but watched the most intense part of the lightning from the vehicle on the way back to camp. I’m pleased with the results for my first attempt; it was basically focusing and aiming at nothing and hoping for the best! 25sec, f11, ISO 800A slightly different editing technique, but from the same storm as the other lightning photo (one of only a few periods of rain I had on holiday). 25 sec, f11, ISO800I asked both my Dave’s to find me owls, and they both succeeded 🙂 The light was not in my favour for photographing this southern white faced owl, but I really like this black and white conversion. 1/1250sec, f6.3, ISO 900A couple of iconic African shapes – elephants and cheetah. 1/250sec, f7.1, ISO 3600
I’ve been MIA from the blog for a few weeks now, and I am glad to finally have an opportunity to get back to posting. I made a move about two and a half weeks ago up to Prince George, and have been spending my time trying to get settled into my new life routine (and spending two full weeks without any internet!).
So far so good up here. I haven’t seen a moose yet, but did see a young grizzly bear on moving day (my camera was sadly not to hand) but what has been outstanding are the hummingbirds. We put up feeders in the front and back yard quickly, and drew quite a crowd. Now there are three feeders and at least one needs to be refilled every day, sometimes more than once a day. At one point we counted nine hovering around the front porch. I didn’t manage to get that in a photo (yet) but I did capture proof of five at one time.
Here are a few of the hummingbird photos I have captured so far. It’s also been my first chance t try out my new lens, the Tamron 150mm-600mm. The reach is amazing, but for this, I really didn’t need it; sometimes I can’t even hang the feeder back up before the hummers start eating again. They are very comfortable with me being close by. I am happy, happy, happy with my bird watching 🙂
Have a wonderful evening everyone!
If you look closely, you can see that he is sticking his tongue out!Beautiful contrast with the evergreens and moss.
A rest… but only for a moment. There’s a feeder close by to protect.
With all these hungry guests, I’m going through a lot of sugar.
Party of five at a feeder built for three.It’s nice to see them sharing, rather than fighting each other off.
I was originally planning to combine the two areas of the Sabi Sands I stayed at into one highlights post, but I’ve been having such difficulty finding the time to work on my photos the last few weeks that it just wasn’t feasible. Fingers crossed I’ll be able to get to the final highlights post this weekend, so I can move on to the other editing projects that I want to do – and get out and do some more shooting too!
This guy only had eyes for one thing (the female that is out of shot). More about that in another post.We turned the corner, and there he was!A huge group of vultures gathering near a kudu carcass. They were waiting for a female lion to clear off before heading in fight for scraps.A wild dog peers at us from between two small tree trunks.A lion take a pause from his kudu breakfast.A dagga boy. One of the old buffalo bulls cooling off in the watering hole.A yellow billed hornbill, or as my Dad likes to say “the flying banana”.A wildebeest enjoying the cool air of early morning.Not who you would expect to see in a wallow.One of my favourite birds, the beautiful lilac breasted roller.
This time-lapse was one of my first attempts, and shows a mid afternoon at the dam in front of Chitwa lodge. Lots of waterbuck around that afternoon!
I spent an amazing few days at Phinda recently, and was lucky enough to not only have a fabulous ranger and tracker team to work with, but also got along brilliantly with the other guests on the vehicle. I have so many photos to go though when I get home; some of the highlights included some of the tiniest babies I have had the pleasure of seeing in the bush (elephant and rhino), spending time with two families of lions, a mother with 3 cheetah cubs, 3 older cheetah brothers, and some really cool eagle sightings. I’d still rather be outside than on the computer, so here are just a few of the special moments from Phinda.
I asked Dave to find me an owl if possible during my stay – he said give me 15 minutes (at 4 in the afternoon). About 20 minutes later he and Thoks found this adorable sleeping southern white faced owl.3 cheetah brothers lounging on a termite mound.Look between the leader’s front legs, and you will see a tiny elephant calf 🙂 Quite possibly the cutest thing I have ever seen.I had two opportunities to photograph lions at night with red filters. I am looking forward to the black and white conversions when I get home.We spotted Mom and the cubs late one evening, and came back in the morning to view. Sadly, in the night the mom had lost one of the cubs, leaving her with the 3 seen here.The young lions were far more interested in getting up than the adults.The resident genet at Phinda, hanging around the dining area at night, hoping someone will drop something tasty. They call her Genet Jackson.
The area of the delta where I stayed was one of permanent water, but day by day, changes in the landscape were apparent as the flood waters flowing in from the Angola highlands began to fill previously dry channels. I think I had the best of both worlds as I was able to see the delta from both land and water – and as a special treat, by air on a helicopter tour.
I took over 1800 photos in 3 nights in the delta. I hope you enjoy a few of the highlights.
A lone giraffe wanders through an area of new flood.A leopard peers down from a tree.A spectacular sunset over the delta, taken while on a sundowner boat trip.A gorgeous female leopard using a fallen tree as a vantage point. I had no expectation of seeing leopard at all in the delta, but I had told my guide the previous afternoon that my dream photo would be capturing a leopard on a tree branch. In two days, I saw three leopards. Talk about lucky!A pair of spotted hyena cubs rest outside of their den.Stand-by passengers at the airstrip?A fish eagle from above.The delta by air.A herd of elephants from above.Water crossing! One of the camp vehicles carrying luggage from the airstrip to the camp.afr
The Kalahari was far, far greener than I anticipated. I had expected a dry and dusty, somewhat barren landscape. But we arrived at the end of the rainy season, and the desert had received rain only a day before we arrived, so everything was quite lush and green. As such, all the animals we saw were very well fed.
Here are a few images from my time at Kalahari Plains.
A pair of lion cubs peek at us from behind their mom.A Kori bustard searches the grass for his next meal.A black backed jackal gives us the eye as the daylight begins to fade.
These birds seemed to think that breakfast is not only the most important meal of the day, but an easy breakfast is!
Too many carbs??? A sociable weaver looks sleepy atop a bowl of museli.A pair of mountain wheatears and a sociable weaver look for crumbs.A group of sociable weavers line up on the patio steps, waiting for me to leave the table so they could help themselves to leftovers.
A quick panorama from the top of table mountain.The old limestone quarry at Robben Island.Rusted barbed wires around Robben Island are just one of the reminders of its very sad past.A view of Table Mountain from Robben Island.A couple of hungry African penguin chicks beg their parents for food at Boulders beach.A baby baboon, no more than a few days old, scampered around the side of the road, seen on our way into Franschhoek.An orange breasted sunbird on some flowers (which I didn’t note the name of) at the Kirstenbosch Gardens in Cape Town.
I am gratefully, happily, joyfully back in Southern Africa again, and spent the past few days in Cape Town. This time, I was lucky enough to get the cable car to the top of Table Mountain (the “tablecloth” covered it almost my entire stay last time, and high winds had the cable car closed). I took the journey to Robben Island, seeing where Nelson Mandela spent his imprisonment and heard a first-hand account about what life was like in the prison, and had a lovely day trip to Franschhoek, the Cape of Good Hope and Boulders Beach (penguins!).
Honestly though, the absolute highlights of my time in Cape Town was having the opportunity to meet up with a friend I met my first trip over, and finally meeting my fabulous SA based travel agent in person.
I’ve brought along a tablet/PC hybrid to back up photos, and the editing capacity is a bit on the sluggish side, but I will do my best to get a few highlight photos posted when I can, because I can honestly say I would much rather be outside enjoying the beautiful scenery than spending too much time inside on the computer.
I’ve finally had a chance to sit down to post this one day two of my time in Namibia, depending on internet connections, I might get a chance to post some photos of the desert and animals in the next couple of days.
Seeing about 6 or 7 of our beautiful great blue herons on Tuesday reminded me that I still had a few photos of grey herons to edit. These are the last of the photos I had flagged off from my stay at Zimanga for editing.
Enjoy 🙂
A grey heron, an egret and a pair of pied kingfishers. Those were some busy rocks!Grey heron reflectionA grey heron with an antelope skull and various bones littering the background.A grey heron in flight above Jozini Dam.A grey heron nicely poses in the grasses next to the dam.
