Tanzania, Africa - Day 6 - Migration, Lion Cub, Gazelle, Wildebeest and more

Day 6 of our safari started off great, with an early morning call home for many of us. We got up early and for the first time, we had reasonably good WiFi at the lodge. Many of us made FaceTime calls with our families to see each other for the first time in a while. It was rather comical and we all traded hellos to each other's family members.

After our video calls and another excellent breakfast, we were off to photograph more wildlife.

As we drove out towards the water, we saw this large group of Wildebeest trying to make their way across the lake.

It was pretty funny as we watched the lead animal get about half way across and then realize it was too deep.

It turned around and all the others followed it back to the same shore where they started. It should be mentioned, that they could have gone another 1/4 mile and walked around the water. But I guess that would require a little more logic and intelligence. :)

I like this photo because of the combination of the Wildebeest with their reflections, and the the two Giraffe in the background.

At this point, I figured that we all had enough "safe shots" of the Wildebeest and figured that this would be a good time to challenge the group with motion pan shots. 

Using my Canon 1DX and Canon 100-400mm lens, I rolled my ISO to 100 and kept the aperture at f/5.6. With the diffused morning light, this gave me a slow shutter speed of 1/13 sec. I then moved my lens at the exact same speed as the Wildebeest and shot a short burst of images.

Facing the other direction, away from the water, we saw this large group of Zebra. It was rare to see so many of them in one group, and not have them interspersed amongst the Wildebeest.

The soft morning light was perfect on this lone Giraffe, which was hanging out by the water. 

We were up on a small hill which helped me to get a shot of the Giraffe with it's head not in the sky.

We drove past the same spot where we had seen the Bat Eared Fox the day before, and once again, they were there.

Ahhh...too cute. Another Dik Dik hanging out.

This funny looking creature is called a Hartebeest.

We were driving along the waters edge when I saw this group of Zebra. I asked Sam, our driver, to stop in a position where we could get a reflection shot. I was taking photos of the two Zebra drinking when the other two came down and joined in. The four of them created a perfect grouping, with a really nice reflection below them. Another favorite from the trip.

This Gazelle was also standing in the water, just far enough to give me a nice reflection shot. OK, I would have been happier if it was another foot or two out so that I would have a better reflection of it's head, but you can't have it all.

After driving around for a while, we came across another pride of lion, including this large male.

The female lion and cubs were all taking a nap.

At this point, we returned to Ndutu Lodge for some lunch and a quick nap of our own. To be honest, I almost never nap, and usually take the time to download, organize and edit photos. There were a whole bunch of wildlife in front of our rooms, and I could not help but keep taking photos. Hey, it's a passion!

After a couple hours at the lodge, we took off in the Land Cruisers once again. All of us loved the Masked Weaver, with it's amazing colors. We were searching for a nice shot of this bird, when we came across this little guy hanging out on a local Acacia tree.

And then almost immediately, we saw this male Grant's Gazelle.

He was guarding his large group of female mates from another male that was encroaching.

This Long Crested Eagle looked really majestic.

Towards the end of the day, we saw this pride of lion with the youngest cubs that we had seen yet.

This time, a yawn from one of the little ones.

It was fun to watch the little ones interact with each other.

I don't think this shy cub wanted his photo taken.

The pride consisted of 4 cubs and 2 adult female lions. Not too far from where they were laying down, there was a freshly killed Wildebeest.

A couple of nearby vultures were eyeing the Wildebeest and made a move to grab some lunch for themselves. Upon seeing this, two of the lion cub made their way over to their catch and guarded it.

They did their best to start eating, but the cubs were not strong enough to tear open the tough skin of their prey. They would have to wait for one of the adults to assist with that.

But that did not stop the cubs from trying to get an early dinner.

Stay tuned for the blog of Day 7 and more.

And, for those of you who missed this amazing opportunity, we are going to do this amazing safari again next year...check out the site HERE to sign up for the 2017 trip! We have a limit of 12 people.

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If you are interested in purchasing any camera equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.

_________________________________________________________________________________

And also, remember that you and your friends can enter your email address at the top right of this blog to get an email any time I write a new blog post or send my monthly newsletter.

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Tanzania, Africa - Day 5 - Lion, Cheetah, Giraffe and the circle of life

Here we are, recapping Day 5 of our incredible Tanzanian safari, and we have photos of animals large and small.

And on this particular day, we saw the circle of life first hand. There are a couple of photos in today's blog which show Cheetah and Hyena feasting on other animal. This might make you wince a bit, but I can tell you that when I was in Tanzania and taking the photos, it was not disgusting at all. It was a real life example of what happens every day in the Serengeti.

Time to take you through the fifth day of our trip.

On this morning, we left Ndutu Lodge and started our quest to find more animal. first coming across this Zebra and her colt. These little Zebra are just so darned cute.

A little later, we were driving along in our Landcruiser, when Sam (our driver) stopped seemingly for nothing. We asked Sam why he stopped in the middle of nowhere. I figured that he, or someone else, needed to get out and "check the back tire", but that was not the case. Sam pointed out these Dung Beetle who were rolling this ball of dung to a burial spot. You see, these beetle (which are about an inch or two in length) cover their eggs in these balls of dung and then roll it around until they dig a hole and bury it. I got out of the vehicle (quickly) and took this shot of our two crappy friends.

(Photographer's note: On this trip, I took almost all of the photos with my Canon 1DX and the newer Canon 100-400mm II lens. Even the photo above was taken with the version II of the 100-400mm lens, which has a much closer minimum focus length than the old version lens. It is also  much sharper than the previous version and no longer has the push / pull zoom.)

As we came to a large flat area, we got our first glimpse of what I was expecting from "the migration", with a sea of endless Wildebeest and Giraffe. We were really captivated by this site, not knowing that we would see an even greater concentration of these animal in the days to come.

We were driving along this long flat area when we saw a large group of Vultures up ahead. That usually means that there has been a kill.

The Vultures were fighting with each other to get to the food source.

Here is a Vulture showing it's dominance.

As we approached the scene, we saw a group of Hyena who were coming back to stake their claim to the food.

There is definitely a pecking order when it comes to food. If an animal is killed by big cats, then they are the first to the food. Then, after they are full, the Hyena come in and have their share. And then we they are done, the birds get the final bit of food off of the carcass. In the above photo, the Hyena had returned to the Zebra remains and scattered the Vultures.

We watched as these two Hyena picked through the remains of the Zebra.

All of a sudden, the one Hyena picked up the Zebra's head and walked off with it. It was a little shocking, but I was not about to stop shooting photos of this.

I saw these three Vultures sitting in a tree and it made me think of the movie "Jungle Book" with the birds and their British accents. Do you remember that?

Not long after we left the site of the carnage, we came across these Impala. They were challenging each other.

We drove along the side of a small lake and saw this large male Lion taking a nap. It was the first adult male Lion that we saw up close, and I was hoping it would do something more than sleep. It is a cat after all, which means that it could sleep for hours.

We were all waiting to see what would happen, when 7 minutes later (I know this from the metadata of the photos) the big guy woke up.

Right after he got up, he gave us this nice big yawn. I was VERY happy to have this shot.

We watched the Lion for about 15 minutes before continuing our drive along with water's edge. As you can see from these photos, we came across hundreds, if not thousands of wildebeest.

We all found it interesting how the different species coexist in the wild.

Whenever we saw Wildebeest, there were always Zebra in the mix.

And then we saw this Cheetah hiding under a tree, eating a freshly killed Wildebeest.

I would venture to say that this Cheetah likes his meat rare. (I cropped this photo to try and spare you the more gruesome site of the open Wildebeest.)

OK - that is it for the carnage. On to more beautiful and peaceful photos...

We saw this other Cheetah up on a hillside and positioned our vehicle in the perfect spot. Well, the perfect spot if the Cheetah would get up and walk to it's left. And as luck would have it, the Cheetah went right where I was hoping he would.  Why did I want him to go that direction? You see the background was far in the distance, and with the Cheetah walking along the crest of the hill, it gave us great separation between the Cheetah and background. This is definitely one of my favorite photos from the two weeks in Africa.

The Cheetah walked over to a nearby tree and plopped down. We moved our vehicle to get a better view. Everyone was photographing the cat when I turned and looked the opposite direction. And what I saw was just beautiful.

On the right side of the vehicle were these amazing waves of green grass, with Acacia trees and blue sky in the background. I have showed this photo to numerous friends, and many of them have asked if I pumped the colors. Nope. This was straight out of the camera with minimal tweaks to exposure.

Check out these playful little Bat Eared Fox. This pack had a whole bunch of little ones who played endlessly.

It was getting late, and we started to head off to our next lodge. But not before coming across this group of Wildebeest and Giraffe.

This was the first and only time that we saw a large group of Giraffe in close proximity to each other. I quickly rolled the aperture of the camera to f/8 so that all of the Giraffe would be in focus, and was excited to get this shot.

Just after taking the Giraffe group shot, all of the animals started running.  Luckily, even though I was still at f/8, I had a shutter speed of 1/640 sec so I could freeze the action.

How is that for an action packed day on safari?

Stay tuned for the blog of Day 6 and more.

And, for those of you who missed this amazing opportunity, we are going to do this amazing safari again next year...check out the site HERE to sign up for the 2017 trip! We have a limit of 12 people.

_________________________________________________________________________________

If you are interested in purchasing any camera equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.

_________________________________________________________________________________

And also, remember that you and your friends can enter your email address at the top right of this blog to get an email any time I write a new blog post or send my monthly newsletter.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Happy Valentines Day (Images of love from the animals in Tanzania)

Happy Valentines everyone!

To celebrate this day, I thought I would post some photos of love from the recent trip to Africa.

This photo pretty much says it all. We all laughed when we were photographing the hippos, because many times their mouths would come together and form the shape of a heart.

I see kids put their hands together to form the shape of a heart, but I think these hippo have them beat.

Zebra kisses...

Valentines Day is not just about our partners, but also our children who we love so much.

 I love the special connection between adult and youngster that I saw out in the wild.

This photo made me laugh, as this mother was cleaning the child, and the youngster has the same look that I give my wife when she tries to clean me up.

Ahhhh, Lion cub love.

Most likely, you will be having a Valentines meal today. Enjoy that time with each other. These two are.

This blog post is dedicated to my wife and kids who I love so much. Although we are currently spread out across the country, this is my virtual box of chocolates to each of you. :)

_________________________________________________________________________________

If you are interested in purchasing any camera equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.

_________________________________________________________________________________

And also, remember that you and your friends can enter your email address at the top right of this blog to get an email any time I write a new blog post or send my monthly newsletter.

_________________________________________________________________________________