Tag: Hippo

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Okavango Photography Safari: Looking for Painted Wolves: Day 2: Pom Pom Leopards, Lions and more.

Our first full day at Pom Pom started with a thunderstorm and rain, which passed quickly and did not delay our planned early start, with a 5am wake-up call, quick light breakfast and out on our game drive by 5:45am.

Very soon our excellent guiding team found a male leopard, who seemed to be sniffing around for something. He had a deformed tail, possibly previously injured and healed with a deformity, but this did not seem to bother him too much. He did interrupt his sniffing to pose for a few quick photos.

We followed him until he eventually reached a tree in which there was a half eaten impala, possibly a kill left behind by another leopard. This one may have been sniffing around because he had gotten the scent and was looking for it. He proceeded to jump into the tree and enjoy the leftovers.

We received information that lions had killed a wildebeest nearby and proceeded to that site, where we found two lions, shortly joined by a third. The beautiful morning light after the rain, offered more opportunity for low angle photos.

Moving along, almost unbelievably, we found a female leopard and her cub. We had been informed of their presence in the vicinity and that hyenas had stolen their food. Mom was resting on a tree stump and junior was lying in a nearby tree.

When the mom started stirring, she offered excellent photo opportunities with the partly cloudy skies in the background.

When she got up, she called her cub down from the tree and they strolled along to where a dead impala was lying under a bush, presumably another kill she had made after losing her first one to they hyenas. She looked like she had already eaten and the cub started to eat.

With the day just a few hours old, we had already had the most amazing sightings and in between, a few other photo opportunities with Warthog, Red-billed Oxpecker, Lilac-breasted Roller, Striped Kingfisher, Fish Eagle and others.

By 11am we returned to camp for brunch, then settling into the usual rhythm of these photography trips: download and backup photos and video, charge camera batteries and clear memory cards to get ready for the next session. “Siesta time” was spent processing photos instead of resting.

At 4pm we went for “high tea” before starting out at 4:30pm for our afternoon drive. We spent some time trying (wholly unsuccessfully in my case) to photograph Carmine Bee-eaters in flight. After spending a while watching Pied Kingfishers hover, fish and fight, we proceeded to find a beautiful male lion, lying in the grass, looking interested.

Soon, he got up and started walking with intent. When we looked around, we saw a lioness approaching enthusiastically from behind. They met up and he started following her.

She made him work hard for it, but eventually he caught up and the relationship was consummated.

Returning back to camp after sunset, we stopped briefly to watch hippo’s emerge from their pool.

Reflecting on the day, even though we did not find the Painted Wolves, it had been almost too good to be true, an amazing experience. Throughout the day, Ryder and Zuma had managed to get us the most amazing sightings and Grant had made the occasional invaluable comment, helping us to get great photos and video.

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Chobe, February 2024, Day 4

This is the day on which the lack of sleep finally caught up to me, thus the delayed blog post. Once again we had a very early start, coffee at 5: 00, with a 5:30 departure to the Chobe National Park entrance gate. Entering the park just before sunrise, we were greeted by the eerie silhouettes of Marabou storks sleeping high in the dead trees

Soon they started waking up and taking off. These birds, truly magnificent in their ugliness, are surprisingly elegant in flight

Up next, was a group of lions, lazing about in the middle of the road and causing a traffic congestion, which unfortunately made photography rather difficult

Driving along the river bank, we saw Little Bee-eaters hunting

Hippos were seen lazing about in the shallow water, where the water lilies could also be seen in the early morning light

Next up, was a very lazy lion, clearly having recently eaten his fill and now just lying under a tree, occasionally opening one eye to look at us, but otherwise barely moving

After a stop for morning coffee, we started making our way back, stopping to photograph White-fronted Bee-eaters hunting

Getting back to the hotel just in time for brunch, we then had a few hours available to look through our morning’s photos and video. As usual, I tried culling as many as possible of the unwanted photos immediately, in order to leave me with a manageable number to finally go through and select my favourites.

In the afternoon, after high tea, we were back on the river. An African darter, sitting on a log against a dark background, gave us opportunity to experiment with low key photography, before flying off, giving us further opportunity to photograph it in flight

Elephants and hippos are always interesting to observe and photograph.

As the sun was getting low on the horizon, a Fish Eagle came to the water’s edge for a drink, giving a smaller bird quite the fright when it decided to take off again

With the setting sun behind them, a herd of elephants also came down to the water’s edge to drink, with a lazy crocodile looking on

We arrived back at the hotel just in time for a quick shower before dinner. After dinner it was back to downloading and culling photos and charging batteries. At this point my own battery also needed some charging and I decided to get an extra hour sleep, rather than writing my blog post.