Actually, I guess this should be more appropriately titled What I Saw Last Week, as none of the photos are from the last 7 days. It’s typed now though and no point in wasting time changing it. On to the photos, and wishing everyone a great week ahead.
It may seem a little strange to post photos from a Masai Mara wildebeest river crossing for a post on ambience, but honestly, the ambience was a very integral part of the experience for me. When you are watching a nature program, they presenters do an excellent job of making a river crossing seem like an amazing spectacle – which is absolutely is!!! They also do an amazing job at making it seem like a secluded experience, which it absolutely is not!
We left our camp at 6am for a 2+ hour drive to the potential crossing point, in the hopes of getting a good parking spot to watch the action. On route we passed wildebeest in the thousands, if not tens of thousands, some marching the direction we were headed, and others, heading in the direction we had come from.
I had never anticipated being the only person there, but I also didn’t expect to find quite so many other people there. But, the atmosphere was a lot of fun. I spent time chatting with my guides and with the people in the vehicle next to us while waiting to see if possibly the wildebeest might make a move. They were certainly taking there time, and a good number of people gave up as the afternoon wore on.
The view from our vehicle at the crossing point. Land cruisers, jeeps, minibuses and land rovers, packed in like sardines and even double parked, all in an attempt to see the action.
When the gazelles approached the water and the crocodiles practically licked their lips, we collectively tried to will the little antelope back from their gruesome fate.
And when at 3:15 the wildebeest started crashing through the water, those that were left were all uttering the same things “amazing”, “mind-blowing”, “unbelievable”.
The atmosphere surrounding that stretch of river on that day in late September, really made the experience that much more special.
I’ve had another great week of wildlife viewing around home, and I think I have gotten some really nice images, but I’ve been caught up with other projects and haven’t had an opportunity to do any review or editing. So, I’ll have to do a good catch up next Sunday, but for now, I hope you will enjoy a couple of my artistic impressions of the fox that visited last week.
As I said in my Feel Good Friday post, this week has been great one for wildlife viewing around the house. The deer have been visiting in force, the flicker, grey jays, hairy woodpeckers, chickadees and magpies are around most days, and the rabbit has been by on more than one occasion.
The special visitor this week though was a gorgeous red fox, who I spotted two afternoons in a row. On both occasions, (s)he was hunting, the second day more successful than the first.
It’s such a joy to look out my office window while working and see all of this unfold!
I’ve had an amazing week of wildlife viewing so far, and I am really looking forward to sharing that on my What I’ve seen this week post on Sunday. But for today, I thought I would share one of my artistic impressions with you, since it has been a while since I’ve done so.
This was created using the Topaz Simplify plug in for Photoshop.
This first monochrome Monday of the year is from my amazing gorilla trekking experience. I have some ideas for future posts about the gorillas, so watch this space in the coming weeks!
This image might be perfect for your walls! You can find this available for print sales here.
The most popular post of the year, in terms of views, was of my favourite, elephants 🙂 Good choice everyone!
I chose a pair of adorable baby elephants for my post 2016-05-24: WPC Jubilant. These little ones thrilled us with their antics for quite some time before being rounded up by the adults to head off. The harsh shadows in this image caused me to dismiss it the first time around, but you can still see a playful glint in the eye, which is what this little one was all about.
So there you have it, the end of a short and sweet wrap up of the year. Thank you to everyone for stopping by, sharing your likes and comments, and spending a few moments a couple times a week seeing the world through my eyes. I’m looking forward to 2017; I have a few new post ideas percolating already!