One of the best places to see elephant in Tanzania is in Tarangire National Park, especially in the dry season as the large herds congregate around the river. We caught this group on an overcast day with the matriarch and her daughters leading their young ones down to the river for a drink.
In honor of Valentine’s Day, here’s a little love, African-wildlife-style. Seeing mating lions is not common and to photograph it, you must be both patient and quick. Patient because the two lions will spend about 30 minutes between mating just loafing around. Quick because, without much warning, the male will get up, walk over, and before you know it, he’s done in about 10-15 seconds. This cycle will repeat for about 2-3 days. King of the Jungle indeed.
There are probably 12-15 black rhino in the Ngorongoro Crater but they are shy animals and tend to stay far from the road. On this day, we saw this mother and calf grazing far from the road but nicely lit in the short grass. Using Canon’s 1.4x extender on their 500mm f/4 telephoto helped me get enough reach to place them nicely in the frame.
One morning on one of my photo safaris, we came across a large family of Bat-Eared Foxes in the short-grass plains of Ndutu near the southern Serengeti. These two nuzzled for a while, with the one looking like it was thinking, “A little to the left…ahhh…that’s the spot.”
We tend to see many Grey Crowned Cranes on my photo safaris, especially in the Ngorongoro Crater. It’s a beautiful bird and the national bird of Uganda. The trick to photographing them is to get the light to the side, to accentuate the texture of the grey feathers, and slightly behind, to backlight their crown.
During a morning game drive on photo safari in Tarangire National Park, we watched a troop of baboons eating and grooming. Baboons can be interesting animals to watch because of their group interactions. This young one grabbed this insect off the ground and scrambled up this tree so he could eat it without being disturbed. He seems to be winking at me right as I snapped the shutter.
With the snow piling up outside and forecasts for about 12″ total, I’m remembering a trip to Belize last spring. After several days in the mountains, we finished our trip on Ambergris Cay which was warm, sunny, and relaxing. This is the view of the end of our place’s dock.
One of my favorite drives in one of my favorite places for a photo safari is along the edge of the Silale Plains in Tarangire National Park. On this day, we had great clouds and I liked the look of these acacia trees placed in the foreground.
Greenport, NY is a great place to wander around for photographs at sunset. Poking your head through the gate at the Greenport Yacht and Shipbuilding Company reveals a huge variety of abstract shapes and colors. I liked this composition with the boat’s hull and the power cord set off by the shadow behind it but I can’t decide whether I prefer the color or black and white version though. Any opinions?
Because I can’t resist a cheesy TGIF photo, here’s a yawning bush hyrax. We were looking for leopards in trees as we drove around the Tarangire River on a recent photo safari. As we looked up into the canopy, there was this little guy staring at us from 6 feet away. He was (obviously) unimpressed by us.
