This the fourth post from a trip to Mashatu in July. As the title suggests, it is about birds seen in the area.  The bird life in Mashatu is diverse and prolific. This post takes the form of a gallery. 

” A great photograph is one which fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed”.

~ Ansel Adams

Female Namaqua Sandgrouse drinking from water in the rocks below the weir on the Matabole river.

Male Namaqua Sandgrouse in the same area.

Pied Kingfisher with its catch from one of the remaining pools of water in the Majale river.

” For me, the camera is a sketch book, and instrument of intuition and spontaneity.”

~ Henri Cartier Bresson

In the same pool of water was this Grey Heron. It was early morning with deep shadows and the light was catching the back of the heron.

Also in the same pool of water was this Hammerkop which was busy fishing, successfully.

“Taking an image, freezing a moment, reveals how rich reality truly is.”

~ Anonymous

Away from water, among the thorn trees, we first heard, then saw this pair of Crimson-breasted Shrikes. These shrikes are often heard first, then seen later, despite their vivid crimson breast colouring.

This pair was busy foraging for insects in a rocky section of the thornveld belt. The gorgeous crimson breast provides a vivid contrast to the browns and yellows in this winter dried area. If this bird only has its back toward you it is difficult to see, being pure black.

Pied Babblers are found in Mashatu. Like most babblers they move is small flocks and also provide a vivid contrast to the winter browns.

Further along the Majale we were watching a small family of elephants drinking water from one the remaining pools of water when we realised that there was a Saddle-billed stork fishing in the same pool.  

“To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place… I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.”
~ Elliott Erwitt

This was a male Saddle-billed Stork, identified by its black eye though I could not see its yellow wattle hanging from its throat.. Together with the Saddle-bill was this seldom seen Black Stork.

Driving through one of the many croton forests you will find many Long-tailed Starlings, African Hoopoes and many Laughing and Turtle doves.

We saw big flocks of Helmeted Guineafowl in Mashatu all foraging in the dust for seeds and insects. Along a  well-known bend in the Majale river where the White-fronted Bee-eaters usually build their nest in the river bank, we sat and watched many guineafowl fly from the river bank down to the edge of one of the many pools of water in  the river to drink.

“Taking pictures is savouring life intensely, every hundredth of a second.”
~ Marc Riboud

The blues of the water in the river below provided an unusual winter background for these flying guineafowl.

There were numerous Lilac-breasted Rollers in Mashatu. They hunt from a perch, flying down onto the ground to catch their insect prey.

These rollers can sit on their perches for longer than your patience lasts but every now and then one flies off to give you a chance to capture  the vivid  blues under its wings and lilac on its breast feathers.

I was amazed the at the massive flocks of Quelea in Mashatu during last winter. They move and feed in very large flocks of many thousands of birds. They feed on seed still on the dry grass stems and also seed lying on the sand on the ground. They tend to move as a dynamic whole which looks more like a perpetual relay.

“I wish that all of nature’s magnificence, the emotion of the land, the living energy of place could be photographed.”
~ Annie Leibovitz

In the evenings,  we were spellbound but the thousands and thousands of quelea flying back to their roosting area in groves of acacias close to the Limpopo river.  We watched wave after wave of these quelea flocks flying past us for about 45 minutes – one of nature’s spectacles.

I hope this small gallery gave you an impression of the abundance and variety of bird life in the Mashatu Nature Reserve. We also saw but did not photograph White-helmeted Shrikes, Martial Eagle, Tawny Eagle, White-fronted and Little Bee-eaters, Black Headed Orioles, Puff-backed Shrikes,  and Little Egrets to name just a few. There are a number of wonderful underground hides operated by C4 Photo Safaris which provide excellent opportunities for up-close animal and bird photography.

“My life is shaped by the urgent need to wander and observe, and my camera is my passport.”
~ Steve McCurry

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

This the third post from our mid-winter trip to Mashatu. The focus of this post is on a young leopardess.

“The four cornerstones of character on which the structure of this nation was built are: Initiative, Imagination, Individuality and Independence.”

~Eddie Rickenbacker

I am not sure how old she was but perhaps between two and three years of age. When we found her in the late afternoon she was lying in the shade in a croton forest. Her coat blended well with the grass and dead branches on the ground in the dappled light. In the late afternoon, we would often find a leopard had come down from its arboreal resting place, and was quietly gathering itself for its nightly excursion. This particular leopard would put her head down and rest and as soon as there was a distinctive sound she would come up and you could see her ears trying to locate the direction of the sound.

A closer look at this beautiful young female revealed some serious battle scars. Our guide Maifala told us that the tear on the right side of her face was sustained in a fight with her sister. The tear on her right side of her mouth rose from her lip half way up to her nose.  The cut had gone right through her lip exposing her teeth. She also appeared to  have had a tear on her nose, which had since healed. There are no doctors in nature you just have to sort yourself out and adapt.

After watching her for about half an hour she got up and started to wander along the river course, stopping on numerous occasions to pick up information from interesting scents.

Leopards are amazingly well camouflaged and they are dead quiet when walking. A leopard has black spots on its face, neck and legs but those spots transform into rosettes along the torso.  The inside of a leopard’s legs and its belly are white with black spots.

“Responsibility to yourself means refusing to let others do your thinking, talking, and naming for you; it means learning to respect and use your own brains and instincts; hence, grappling with hard work.”
~ Adrienne Rich

Solitary and independent, she made her way through the trees and was highly tuned into everything around her. She stopped in her tracks trying to assess whether there was food or foe in front of her.

As the afternoon progressed the light softened which was an ideal time to shoot images of leopards. Leopards are predominantly solitary animals and have large hunting territories. Male territories are larger than females’ but they do overlap. Individuals usually only tolerate intrusion into ranges for mating. Both sexes mark their ranges with urine and leave claw marks with scent on trees to warn others to stay away.

Other than her torn lip she looked to be in fine condition and her coat looked clean and well cared for.

“The quieter you become the more you hear.”

~ Rumi

She was not walking with intention and after stopping, sitting and listening, she just lay down in the soft light. I am always surprised how thin a leopard’s torso appears when it lies down.

I am not sure whether it was our presence that was irritating her – it probably was.  As she snarled, you could see her right upper canine through the tear in her lip.

Having got up again she wandered closer to the river. I just loved the next scene with the late afternoon light filtering through the trees as she walked to the gap.

Eventually she got down to the edge of the Majale river and was watching a few Impala drinking from one of the remaining pools of water. Interesting, but too far away for good photos!

The next day we found her again. This time well away from the river in a thickly treed area. You do not often hear a leopard but when you do it is a grasping guttural coughing. It is distinctive and you will often hear it at last light or before the first glow has started to rise in the eastern morning sky. When you hear it you will be spellbound, it is unique and primal and you know you are in the presence of one of nature’s stealthiest hunters.

“Independence can neither be created nor destroyed just like energy! It can only be transferred from a fearless, resilient, intelligent & visionary “form” to another, regardless of what gender you are born with. It’s the energy that seeks to free your mind.”
~ Vishwanath S J

She stopped, at the base of what looked to be an Apple Leaf, in the only patch of sun in an otherwise shady area.

A few moments later she easily climbed the Apple Leaf and found a section of the bough that had a perfect resting curve. Leopards spend a lot of their time in trees. Their spotted pelage is perfect camouflage, helping them blend in with the leaves and branches of the tree. They are extremely powerful for their size and will usually hoist their prey high into a tree out of the way of lions and hyaenas. Leopards can hoist twice their body weight up a tree.

.

She seemed quite content to wait out the remaining daylight hours in her arboreal resting place, well away from attentions of wandering lions and hyenas. There did not seem to be any baboons in this area, so she was not disturbed.

“There is a way that nature speaks and the land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough or quiet enough, to pay attention to the story.”

Lying like only a leopard can up in a tree. The bough for a pillow, front legs either side of the bough for balance and hind legs tucked underneath her body and tail hanging down – looking very relaxed.

Every now and then she would look up but it was clear she did not have a care in the world. She must have  been busy the previous night and now it was time to rest. Leopards are most active at night, but they are also eternal opportunists.

“Night, the beloved. Night, when words fade and things come alive. When the destructive analysis of day is done, and all that is truly important becomes whole and sound again. When man reassembles his fragmentary self and grows with the calm of a tree.”

~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

A front paw also makes a soft pillow.

An iconic pose of a leopard – in harmony with her environment.

Leopards are classified as near threatened by the IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species. This listing is due to their declining population, which is caused by habitat loss and hunting.

“True freedom is the capacity for acting according to one’s true character, to be altogether one’s self, to be self-determined and not subject to outside coercion.”

~Corliss Lamont

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

In this post I have focused on the dominant pride of lions in Mashatu. In July, it is mid-winter in the southern hemisphere and the mornings are crisp and the sky clear with wisps of small cloud. The Mopani trees sparkle, displaying their gold, orange and green leaves, and the morning sky glows. We made our way down to the Mashatu river upstream from the Matabole river along which  Eagle’s Nest camp is located.

“We went down into the silent garden. Dawn is the time when nothing breathes, the hour of silence. Everything is transfixed, only the light moves.”
~ Leonora Carrington

“Just before dawn I have the world all to myself.”

~Terri Guillemets

It takes about half an hour to get down to the rivers from our camp. On the Reserve’s frequency radio, our guide, Maifala picked up the location of the lion cubs. We took a short cut along the river bed through the croton grove. It is indescribably beautiful along this route with not a sound to be heard, save the odd call from a Long-tailed Starling or Hoopoe. The thick grove of trees mute much of the sound creating a serene peaceful environment and driving through the cool dappled light is magical.

“The mountains are my bones, the rivers my veins,

The forests are my thoughts and the the stars my dreams,

The ocean is my heart, its pounding is my pulse,

The songs of the heart write the music of my soul.”

~Unknown

With a coded message and following the tracks of previous vehicles from the night before, we found the lion cubs. As can be expected with normal youngsters they do not stay put and want to explore. Fortunately they started to wander out of the shadows into the sun.

There were two groups of cubs in this playgroup, one litter was very new. There were no adults and they had obviously had their sleep and now the cubs wanted to play in the sun.

The cubs were curious about this “big beige thing” with a few large “eyes” peering at them (our vehicle with large camera lenses). It (and we) did not make a sound and it/we were not aggressive.

The cubs considered their options. The larger cubs took the lead. The smaller cub on the right hand side was so small that its belly almost scraped along the ground because its legs were so short.

Curiosity got the better of the cat!

Curiosity satisfied, the cubs started to wander off to look for their mothers. This is just the time when real problems can begin…..

The older and larger cubs ventured off first. Presumably they could smell which way their mothers had gone because they walked off in a specific direction.

A bold advance at first, but every now and then stopped for a “help me” meow.

It does not matter what size you are, you are still a lion!!!

“Have the will of a tiger, the speed of a cheetah, and the heart of a lion.”

~Kevin McCarty

The time had come for one of the lionesses to check up on the  nursery of cubs.

There must have been a smell or some tell-tale sign which this lioness was not happy with, which prompted her to start moving the cubs.

“I did not give you the gift of life. Life gave me the gift of you.”

~The Gottman Institute

I am always intrigued that the lioness’s jaw, which is powerful enough to suffocate a buffalo, can pick up and carry a very small cub for an extended distance without hurting it. I am not referring to a comfort carrier here. That cub intuitively knows to keep dead still and to be quiet.

We must have watched this lioness walk at least two hundred metres with this cub in her jaws.

She did not stop once to give herself or her cub a break. She would have done this for all her cubs which were too small to walk behind her for a reasonable distance.

We wondered where dad was and the next day we found him. This is one of the most handsome looking males I have ever seen and he has been around (in Mashatu) for over a year.

He was out patrolling his territory. The wind was blowing from his front and flattening his mane creating an even more powerful impression.

“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way .”

He did not walk in a straight line but seemed to wander along a scent trail through the trees and bushes.

This was one very big and powerful male lion in the prime of his young life and he walked with little to fear from anything.

“Greatness is not measured by money and stature but by courage and heart.”

Once he walked into a croton grove he slowed down to take in what must have been many interesting scents. Nothing threatening but the equivalent of social media without a tablet or phone.

I have used this image to show the lithe, brute strength of this male lion.

“Truth does not sit in a cave and hide like a lie. It wanders around proudly and roars loudly like a lion.”
~ Suzy Kassem

We were not allowed to get off the vehicle because the male was close by but that paw print was bigger than my outstretched hand.

In true lion fashion this male was marking his territory with his urine. His urine is laced with chemicals and would give any “scent seeker” a clear sense of his size, age and vigour and a clear sign that this is his territory.

It is moments like these that I am very happy to be on a vehicle and not alone on foot.

“Strength arises from silence. Strength arises from being heard.

Know when to speak. Know when to say nothing.”

~Pamela Leigh Richards

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter.”

~Dr Martin Luther King Jnr

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

We spent a family week in Mashatu in mid-July. This and the next two posts will show some of the images from the few glorious days we spent in Mashatu Nature Reserve in the south east of Botswana in the Tuli Block area.

“For the 99 percent of the time we’ve been on Earth, we were hunter and gatherers, our lives dependent on knowing the fine, small details of our world. Deep inside, we still have a longing to be reconnected with the nature that shaped our imagination, our language, our song and dance, our sense of the divine”.

~Janine M. Benyus

There are three main rivers flowing through Mashatu Nature Reserve, the Majale, Matabole and Pitsani. We often find animals in these river beds. In winter it is normally bone dry but the rains came late this year with good rains in April. This resulted in large pools of water remaining in along the river in July, which is when it is completely dry. Normally in winter the elephants will dig into the river bed to find water which in turn helps all the other animals and birds. The animals often congregate in the river  bed looking for water. During the day it was warm but not hot and it was chilly at night.

Anyone who has been to Mashatu will recognize this iconic Baobab above the banks of the Majale river. It is a youngster and has many centuries still to grow.

In the early morning light we found a large troop of Chacma baboons. They are very talkative and you can hear the troop “chemering” or chatting away to each other as come down from their tree top bedroom way up in the Mashatu trees. They climb to the upper parts of these massive tree to get away from predators at night. It was early morning so the angle of the light was low which enabled us to take some backlighting shots. This female had a youngster hanging underneath her.

One of the spritely teenagers dancing in the dust in the early morning light.

This female baboon was warming herself in the early morning sun and felt the need for a good scratch!

The troop we came across had many females with youngsters. The mothers are very attentive and the small babies do not leave their side.

“In those vernal seasons of the year, when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against Nature not to go out and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicing with heaven and earth”.

~John Milton

Further down the river, our guide Maifala, who has been  guiding in Mashatu for the last fifteen years, knows the area like the back of his hand. He weaved the vehicle through the croton forest until eventually we came out at the edge of the river. There were two female lions resting in the early morning sun lying in luxuriant grass on the bank above the river.

The two females obviously needed a break from the “kids”. One female was quietly grooming herself while the other was “out for the count”. That is a relative term when you talk about lions. Often they look fast asleep but the sound of a twig or branch cracking close by will wake them in an instant.

On the far side of the river bank (to the females)  was another troop of baboons who were making sure that everyone in the neighbourhood knew that there were lions in the area. The baboon  parading on the far side of the river bank, at the top of a steep bank, safe from harms way looked very funny. He would stomp around barking and jumping up and down on his front legs – though not very intimidating.

The troop leader would bark then throw mud clogs down the bank. The baboons made a real racket ensuring that the whole world knew that they had seen the predators.

Both lionesses had cubs. They were very active, no wonder the females need a break. Cuteness can be hard work!!

“The indescribable innocence of and beneficence of Nature,–of sun and wind and rain, of summer and winter,–such health, such cheer, they afford forever!”

~Henry David Thoreau

The females had tucked these youngsters out of sight in a croton thicket. We managed to get into the thicket and they came out to play on a dead log in a small patch of open ground.

They were very playful and there is always one cub who is more inquisitive than the rest.

Not far from the lion cubs was this Steenbok foraging in a open piece of ground. They normally move around in pairs so the female must have been somewhere close by, but we just did not see her. Steenbok eat vegetation close to ground level and will also eat roots and tubers which they dig out with their sharp hooves.

At night most of the elephants seem to walk to higher ground and in the early mornings the family groups walk back down along well worn game trails to the rivers to feed on the lush vegetation and sate their thirst. These herds tend to walk in single file along the paths which is always exciting because we position the vehicle well ahead of them and they  walk up to, and past us. They kept an eye on us but seem very relaxed.  The procession was quiet and peaceful. It is quite humbling to have  herd of such large animals all within a few metres of you, walk past in peace.

It is always a privilege to get close to these wonderfully intelligence creatures. One cannot but sense the the “knowingness” behind those auburn eyes.

This family of Kudu were wandering along the Majale river bed. We did not see the family bull, just some of the females and a few youngsters. Those big ears are like radar scanners picking up every sound.

Further upstream the Majale we found three Kudu bulls which were browsing on the bushes as they wandered along.

You could see all three bulls were in prime condition. Adult bulls have two and a half twists in their spiral horns. I wonder what would happen when the came across females.

For such large antelope these Kudu bulls were very fast and could easily jump what I thought were quite wide gullies. These browsers still had plenty of vegetation to eat even in winter.

We stopped to watch a herd of impala crossing the river bed. Although there are plenty of Impala around you never know what you might see. This young male stopped to have a look at us. His age is given away by his short straight horns which will grow to be substantial and have one major twist in them when he is an adult.

Baboons and Impala are often found together as the Impala eat the fallen fruit and flowers which the baboons drop when feeding the in the Mashatu and other trees. Despite the very stoney river bed this baboon had no trouble running fast across the riverbed.

This was a big but young male warthog. He was wandering around foraging on his own. Much like pigs they use their snout and tusks to help them dig out roots and tubers during the dry season. He looked very confident but stuck to the open areas so he did not get surprised by a predator.

“Away from the tumult of motor and mill
I want to be care-free; I want to be
still!
I’m weary of doing things; weary of
words
I want to be one with the blossoms
and birds”.

~Edgar A. Guest

I just liked this image of a Fork-tailed Drongo perched on a jutting branch with an elephant in the background. This little character was hawking insects disturbed by the elephants.

A pair of tree squirrels sunning themselves in the winter morning sun. They also groom each other which helps disperse their common scent. Tree squirrels are highly territorial.

It was quite remarkable to see these little tree squirrels spreadeagled on a steeply sloping tree trunk. These squirrels were very alert and would often chirp when they sensed danger from either the ground or the air.

The ubiquitous and inevitable Lilac-breasted Roller. I can never resist taking a shot of these beautifully colored birds.This one was hawking insects from its perch.

The Lilac-breasted Roller is even more striking in flight.

At the end of our first day we found the cheetah mum and her four (almost adult) cubs. It was getting quite dark and thankfully my trusty Nikon had excellent low light capability.

“To look at any thing,
If you would know that thing,
You must look at it long…”

~John Moffitt

This group of four Cheetahs were hunting along Mashatu’s M1. They were hunting Impala.

The Cheetah mum was the lead hunter with her four youngsters as backup.

By the time they found a herd of Impala and started their chase it was too dark, and my shutter speeds were too low. It was the most incredible sound to hear this herd of Impala snorting and dashing across the stoney ground to escape the Cheetahs. The Impala all got away – this time.

At last light along the M1 as it is called in Mashatu. This is the road that leads from the border post to Mashatu Main Camp. This is the time we normally stop and have sundowners to enjoy the setting sun and the spectacularly colorful show signaling the end of another day in Africa.

“If there is any wisdom running through my life now, in my walking on this earth, it came from listening in the Great Silence to the stones, trees, space, the wild animals, to the pulse of all life as my heartbeat”.

~Vijali Hamilton

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

This is the last post from a wonderful  ten-day trip with Andrew Beck and Sammy from Wild Eye. I thought Masai Mara and Serengeti were fantastic places for a wildlife photographer to visit, but Amboseli and Tsavo West have added another dimension to fantastic.

“We eat light, drink it in through our skins. With a little more exposure to light, you feel part of things physically. I like feeling the power of light and space physically because then you can order it materially. Seeing is a very sensuous act–there’s a sweet deliciousness to feeling yourself see something.”
~ James Turrell

The Oryx are different in this part of the world. The Fringe-eared Oryx is listed as near threatened on the IUCN red list of threatened species.  Oryx is a genus consisting of four large antelope species. Three of them are native to arid parts of Africa, and the fourth to the Arabian Peninsula. The next image is of a Fringe-eared Oryx. It is fawn coloured and it does not have the same degree of  black on its legs as a Gemsbok. Fringe-eared Oryx are found only in south-eastern Kenya and north-eastern Tanzania.  The Tana river in Kenya divides the ranges of the Fringe-eared and Beisa Oryx, with the Fringe-eared being below the Tana river in Kenya. 

The Fringe-eared Oryx has the same markings on its face as a Gemsbok, with black and white markings and a black stripe which runs from its ear through its eye down to its chin. It also has fawn colouring on its lower legs and hocks whereas the Gemsbok has  black and white lower legs and black hocks. I often wonder why these animals have different markings and I wonder whether the environment dictates whether they should reflect or absorb light and heat – just thinking. 

A handsome male Lesser Kudu. The Lesser Kudu is native to Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda, but it is extinct in Djibouti. the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) rates the Lesser Kudu as “Near Threatened”. Horns are present only on males. The spiral horns are 50–70 cm long, and have two to two-and-a-half twists, the same number of twists as the greater Kudu.

“The first act of awe, when man was struck with the beauty or wonder of Nature, was the first spiritual experience.”
~ Henryk Skolimowski

I have converted this image to black and white and emphasised the  colour sliders to bring out the Kudu. In colour, this Kudu is remarkably well camouflaged.

A Purple Roller is also called the Rufous-crowned Roller, is found throughout sub-Saharan Africa to as far south as Namibia and the South Africa. Compared with other rollers, its colours are rather dull and its voice harsh and grating. It prefers the dry thorn veld and can spend long periods perched at the top of thorn trees, watching for prey on the ground such as insects, spiders, scorpions and small lizards.

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.”
~ Albert Einstein

It is only when a Purple Roller takes flight do you really get to see its mauves and purples. There are two genera and 11 species of roller. Thankfully the conservation status of this species is of least concern but that does not mean that you see them often. This is only the fourth time I have seen a Purple Roller. Rollers get their name from the aerial acrobatics some of these birds perform during courtship or territorial flights. We did not see them performing this time but their rolling displays are spectacular, I have only seen Lilac-breasted Rollers doing these rolling displays!!. 

At the top of the valley looking down from a high tree, this Martial Eagle was intently watching all the goings on in the valley below. You could not see its eye colour but the Martial adult has a deep orange coloured eye. This was a juvenile as the adults have a dark brown head, shoulders and neck colouring. The breast and belly feathers are white with dark brown spots.Even this independent juvenile with take prey which ranges from dik-diks to Guineafowl and even monitor lizards. This is the largest bird of prey in Africa, with a wingspan of up to 260 cm and a maximum weight of 6.2 kilogrammes

“The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery.”
~ Anaïs Nin

Further down the valley we saw what at first I thought this was a Tawny Eagle, but the shape of its head and the deep gape makes me think this was a Steppe Eagle. It was probably an almost fully fledged adult but its colouring is not yet the  overall, dark chocolate-brown of the mature adult.

Down in the valley, a landscape view showing you the rugged terrain in this part of Tsavo West.

A pair of Egyptian Geese down in the valley close to the elephant carcass. We saw  pairs  close to the scattered waterholes but there were not nearly as many as we usually see in town. 

I could not believe these Egyptian Geese mated and washed in this foul-smelling, stagnant water. This male did not seem to be fussed.

Early on our last morning we found two lionesses down near the elephant carcass. The male and two females had been feeding on the carcass for a few days and it was starting to get “ripe”.

“Look at everything as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time. Then your time on earth will be filled with glory.”
~ Betty Smith

A Baobab tree with buffalo weaver nests hanging from its branches with Tsavo’s volcanic mountains as a backdrop.

This large bull elephant was wandering down to our favourite series of dams to drink and get more closely acquainted with the females.

Paddling with the big guys, enough to give you goose bumps!

Early morning game drive down in the Tsavo valley. The light was beaming in shafts through the trees creating spots of warm radiance. Andrew kept encouraging us to look and look some more and we would see. This image is of paper-thin bark and spiders webs illuminated by the early morning light.

“Learn to see, and then you’ll know that there is no end to the new worlds of our vision.”
~ Carlos Castaneda

Back lighting a spider’s web in an acacia bush.

Another first, a Black-headed Lapwing which has a familiar wispy black crest on the back of its head like a northern Lapwing. It has very clear black and white markings on its face, its bill is reddish pink and its eye is yellow with a black iris.It likes dry plains with bare or with short grass, and dry woodland. It feeds mainly on insects.

One very relaxed female leopard wandering across the sand road in front of us. You can see from the long morning shadows that it was still early. If you can’t get front lighting then get rim-lighting creating a silhouette.

“But how can you have a sense of wonder if you’re prepared for everything?”
~ Margaret Atwood

This young female leopard stopped on the ridge to have a good look around. This is obviously her territory but she shares it with lions so it seemed infinitely reasonable to have a good look around before wandering on. There were plenty of trees for her to climb if she needed a quick escape.

Looking in the opposite direct to the leopard was this noisy Crested Francolin who was busy telling everyone where we were or perhaps where the leopard was whilst pecking grass seeds from the sand.

“The finest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle.”
~ Albert Einstein

This young leopard decided to climb an acacia to get into a better lookout position. She must have seen something off to our left because she stared intently at it for about five minutes before relaxing on the fork of the tree. We could not see what caught her attention but it could have been a dik-dik and there were many in this area.

She kept an eye on us to make sure that we did not move.

She lay down and moulded herself on the bough of the tree, looking alert but relaxed knowing that no lion would be able to follow her up that tree.

In our last afternoon we watched this  lone bull elephant walking through this warm saturated colour palette.

“No object is mysterious. The mystery is your eye.”
~ Elizabeth Bowen

Success at sunset, a Hammerkop with supper.

A Black Crake silhouetted against the reflection of the fading evening light.

A winter sunset in Tsavo West from down in the valley.

“Dreams, memories, the sacred–they are all alike in that they are beyond our grasp. Once we are even marginally separated from what we can touch, the object is sanctified; it acquires the beauty of the unattainable, the quality of the miraculous. Everything, really, has this quality of sacredness, but we can desecrate it at a touch. How strange man is! His touch defiles and yet he contains the source of miracles.”
~ Yukio Mishima

Another big thank you to Andrew Beck and Jimmy from Wild Eye for a wonderful trip to Amboseli and Tsavo West. This is a diverse and spellbinding part of the world and for a wildlife photographer you can’t wait to get up and get out in the bush each morning. The trip was punctuated by unusual sightings and many firsts for both mammals and birds.

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

This is my third post on our trip to Tsavo West. Usually we were out at first light but this post starts later in the day.

“A spirituality founded in the pursuit of truth is one that should be able to adapt with changes in knowledge. Better yet, it is one that gains in value with increases in knowledge. As it turns out, the more we learn about the nature of existence, the greater and more impressive its mysteries become”.

~Guy Tal

There were large flocks of queleas flying back and forth across the two waterholes in front of the Kilaguni Lodge. These large flocks make quite a noise en mass when flying down to drink at a waterhole. Certainly enough noise to scare a zebra stallion.

There was an abundance of bird life in front of the lodge down near the waterholes. There were many Von der Decken’s Hornbills around the lodge.

We also saw many White-bellied Go-away birds in front of the lodge displaying all the usual antics of go-away birds like chasing each other between and inside trees and bushes.

“Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean”.
~ John Muir

As we started to venture further away from the lodge all sorts of opportunities opened up. On our way out of the lodge we found this Grey-headed Kingfisher who was very intent on its insect hunting.

Usually the dik-diks move around in thick grass so it is worth stopping when a Kirk’s dik-dik is walking and foraging in the open. These are such small delicate antelope. That big black patch just under its eye is a scent gland which it uses to mark pieces of stems of grass and small bushes. There must have been an interesting scent which caught this Kirk’s dik-dik’s attention.

Next to the road  we found this Black-faced sandgrouse which had been foraging for seeds in the sand. It was very wary but sat tight.

This Black-faced sandgrouse walked around but stayed in more or less the same place and gave us an opportunity to get quite a few decent shots. I always marvel at the colouring of sandgrouse. Their backs are cryptically coloured making them very difficult to see from above but their fronts are much more exotic and distinctive. If this bird puts its head down you will never see it.

“If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive”. 

~ Eleonora Duse

Further down the bumpy road into the valley we found this Golden-breasted Starling.  We really tried to get a decent image of this character but it was having none of it.

This is a stunningly beautiful bird, the Golden-breasted Starling, but like many good looking beings remains aloof.

This female Bateleur Eagle had not got her full adult dark plumage. I figured it was a female looking at the greyish band of secondary feathers on its wing, unlike the male which has all black secondaries. The male has a thick black trailing edge on the underside of the primaries and the female a thin black trailing edge on the underside of  its primaries.

 Short maned male Tsavo lion.  This was the young female elephant which had died from an infection from a poachers spear. This big male lion was strong enough to open up the carcass.

“True realism consists in revealing the surprising things which habit keeps covered and prevents us from seeing”.

 ~ Jean Cocteau

Down in the thicker woodland areas were found many Lesser Kudu. These were always special sightings, especially for a southern African resident. These little Kudu cousins are quite different to their larger southern cousins, size wise they are much smaller and it has conspicuous white patches on the upper and lower parts of the neck and does not have a neck fringe.

Juvenile Eastern Charting Goshawk. We never drive past a sighting like this. Even though it might not be a perfect pose, we wait for it to change position into a better pose. Often waiting for the change of pose is just wishful thinking.

This Eastern Chanting Goshawk soon got bored with us dominating its view and flew off so it could concentrate on the matter of hunting.

The Lesser Kudu is quite different to the greater Kudu. It has a broad white stripe down its back and its has distinct whites stripes which run down across its stomach and hand quarters. The Lesser Kudu has white eye rings and no white band between its eyes. It has those distinct large Kudu ears and a ridge of hair along its spine.  

Sparring giraffe down near the series of waterholes. This became a favourite spot. These youngsters started reasonably gently but got progressively more aggressive, but all ended well. They were just testing each other.

Down on the valley floor looking west to the volcanic hills

Most of the buffalo took no notice of us but there was always one which watched us carefully.  The sentry was usually a buffalo cow.

This was a herd of buffalo which we estimated to have included more than 300 animals.

At times, sections of the herd got spooked by something we could not see and once the thundering hooves got moving they threw up plenty of red dust and scattered the oxpeckers.

Impressive vista – an African privilege – space, big skies and abundant wildlife.

A small family herd of elephant came down to drink at the series of waterholes along the river course

Black and white treatments provide drama to the otherwise peaceful scene around the waterhole

In the late afternoon, the colours were saturated. The scene was peaceful and each individual walked quietly to the water’s edge.

It was warm and not especially hot but this family group of elephants were really enjoying sating their thirst. The light was saturated, the colours rich and the scene peaceful. There was a sense of rich harmony.

I could not resist taking a few shots of the reflections of the elephants on the surface of the water. It was a quiet time with these large animals sating their thirst and was probably a time of quiet mediation for them too.

Golden reflections paint colours and shapes of the elephant but reveal nothing of the experiences this elephant has had during the day.

We were so absorbed watching the elephants and buffaloes down at the waterhole that we did not see this young female leopard had killed, what we think was, a dik-dik.

“Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul”.

~ Alexander Pope

Not only had she killed the dik-dik without spooking or attracting the attention of the buffaloes but she had almost finished eating it right under their noses. The only way we found out about her was when another game vehicle arrived behind us and radioed to tell us to look around and have a look at this leopard feeding on a kill about thirty metres behind us higher up the slope.

This young female leopard blended beautifully into the grass. Only when she moved and lifted her head could we see her.

Having fed well she wandered down to river stopping a ridge of rock to have a look around. I find it very interesting the these animals do not show any haste. They are stealthy and very aware of everything around them. In this state, they stop frequently to look, smell and listen.

The photography is more difficult in Tsavo West because of the thick woodlands. Nevertheless, the quality of sightings and very different species compared with those in southern Africa make it an intriguing destination. It makes you realise that Africa is a continent with an incredible diversity of wildlife. more than enough to keep you occupied for a lifetime.

“When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty”.

~ John Muir

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

We set off early on our third morning in Tsavo West to explore Mzima springs. This was only the second day in eight that I saw Mount Kilimanjaro’s peak. We were travelling north-west from the Kilaguni lodge to Mzima springs when our vehicle’s right rear tyre was punctured so we had to stop and repair it. When I say we, in fact Sammy who knew exactly what to do, fixed it, and in no time we were pneumatically restored and on our way.

“We need the tonic of wildness…At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.”
~ Henry David Thoreau

Although not a great image, the next image shows the graduations of light and colour stretching through the valley to the first range of hills and further to “Mount Kili” about 40 kilometres away. It also showed one of the few large open stretches of woodland savanna in what is a mountainous area.

It was still reasonably early in the morning and looking east into the sun we got some wonderful moody images of zebras walking through the golden flecked grass and with mist in the trees behind them. This has got to be one of the magic aspects about photography, when you realise that the light is golden and dancing and try to catch it.

“We wander for distraction but we travel for fulfillment”

~Hilaire Belloc

The zebras all walked in single file through the grass,  in strict hierarchy – as they do.

Mzima  usually refers to the body’s state of health and well-being, literally meaning “full” or “whole.” It is an apt name for Mzima springs because it is an  verdant oasis in the hot, dry, dusty bush. In the neighbouring Chyulu Range stand porous peaks of volcanic ash, whose youngest cones were formed about 500 years ago. Rising 2,000 metres above a dry woodland plain, these hills trap up to a metre of rain each year from moisture-laden winds. All that rain soaks into the sponge-like ash and percolates down until it hits impervious bedrock and begins its underground journey to Mzima Springs. 

“For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider, every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver.” 

~ Martin Luther

The Chyulu range is composed of volcanic lava rock and ash, which is too porous to allow rivers to flow. Instead, rain water percolates through the rock, and is thought to spend many years underground before emerging 50 kilometres away at Mzima springs. Filtered over many years, the pure water gushes forth at a steady pace of more than 200 million litres a day, creating this oasis at the heart of Tsavo West National Park. The natural filtration process gives rise to Mzima’s famously clear stream, which flows through a series of pools connected by streams washing boulders to form rapids. You can see just how clear the water is as you can see the hippo’s body and legs quite clearly under the water.

Two kilometres downstream from the springs, the stream is blocked by a solidified lava flow and disappears below the surface again.

In one of Mzima’s pools this Reed Cormorant stopped for a break on a fallen tree trunk and was shaking water off its feathers. I would imagine it is quite difficult for the cormorants to hunt in such clear water but this character looked to be having a very busy time.

The area immediately around the springs and pools is verdant. The grass is thick, lush and green, and there are a variety of palm trees and many Fever trees. I find the colour combinations on the trunks of Fever trees fascinating. It is the only tree, I know of, which at maturity has a green trunk.

“What did the tree learn from the earth to be able to talk with the sky?”

~ Pablo Neruda

There are numerous paths which traverse one side of the pools. The paths guide bush lovers through the forested area in Mzima and follow old hippo trails.

“What an irony it is that these living beings whose shade we sit in, whose fruit we eat, whose limbs we climb, whose roots we water, to whom most of us rarely give a second thought, are so poorly understood. We need to come, as soon as possible, to a profound understanding and appreciation for trees and forests and the vital role they play, for they are among our best allies in the uncertain future that is unfolding.”

~ Jim Robbins

In one of the pools is an observation hut. It is a semi-submerged viewing hut where you can view hippos, crocodiles and fish underwater. Being semi-submerged makes it more interesting  because to get to see what is going on above and below the water level. We were hoping to see crocs and hippos under the water but only got to see what looked to be a type of carp. You get a real sense of a diverse integrated ecosystem above and below the water level.  I tried to take some images through the see-through glass of the submerged hut of the fish swimming around, but my focus was not up to scratch. This was one of the two large pools at Mzima spring which are connected by a babbling stream, fringed with lush reeds.

In the shade in the verdant oasis it is bursting with life, beautiful and tranquil – a break from the dust and heat of Tsavo. A family of Sykes’ monkeys seemed to agree with us.

Sykes’ monkey is also known as the white-throated monkey or Samango monkey. Thankfully this species has a ‘ least concern’ conservation status. Their coats are mainly a dark grey, the hair on their tail, limbs and shoulders is almost black and they have a brownish-yellow tinge to the hair on their back, face and top of their heads. Their white moustaches make them look old but they have large inquiring auburn-coloured eyes, and a flattened nose.

“There is no logical way to the discovery of elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance.”

~Albert Einstein

Sykes’ monkeys are semi-arboreal, semi-terrestrial and are therefore comfortable in both in the trees and on the ground. While we were wandering through the forested area around the springs they were playing and feeding on vegetation on the ground. Their main diet comprises  shoots, fruits, leaves, flowers and berries, but they will eat eggs and insects when they can find them. 

There were lots of species of wild flowers which attracted many types of flies, beetles, bees and butterflies. After hunting around a bit I think this might be a butterfly called an African Golden Arab, drinking nectar from a Wort Club (http://www.ngkenya.com/flora/plants.html).

Along the paths there were many what I think were Turbinas sprawling over the other vegetation. These flowers were a magnet for insects of all kinds.

All the insects buzzing around the multitude of flowers were in turn a magnet for the lizards like this agama.

Mzima springs was a unique place to visit, like nothing I have ever seen before. It was just busting with life.

“Walk tall as the trees, live strong as the mountains, be gentle as the spring winds, keep the warmth of the summer sun in your heart and the great spirit will always be with you.” 

~ Native American proverb

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

After a wonderful five days in Amboseli, we drove to Tsavo West National Park. The road trip took around four hours (around 150kms on mostly dirt roads). Tsavo West and Tsavo East were once one large park. It was split into two by the construction of the railway line which was routed from Mombasa to the interior of Kenya. The park is located equidistant between Nairobi and Mombasa.

“If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.”

~Bruce Lee

Our Wild-Eye guide, Andrew Beck told us these two parks have quite different eco-systems. The slightly larger Tsavo East is generally flat with dry plains across which the Galana River flows. By contrast, Tsavo West National Park has much more wooded, hilly landscapes, and is dotted with volcanic cones and stark black lava flows.

As we entered Tsavo West, Andrew suggested to us that we were in for an unusual couple of days. Unusual because of the landscapes, wildlife and birds, all of which were going to be quite different to those in Amboseli.

” A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions”.

~Oliver Wendell Holmes Jnr

Tsavo is known for its “ghosts in the darkness”, those two infamous man-eating lions. Tsavo males look different to the Mara and Serengeti lions. The most vigorous Serengeti males grow large dark manes, while in Tsavo they have short, thin manes or none at all. The thinking is that the thickness of the manes has much to do with access to water. Tsavo is hotter and drier than the Serengeti. A male lion with a thick mane “would squander his daily water allowance simply panting under a bush, with none to spare for patrolling his territory, hunting or finding mates”, according to Patterson. – ”http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/man-eaters-of-tsavo-11614317/

In 1898, the infamous two male lions were believed to have killed, most of whom were eaten, between 120 and 140 construction workers who were  builing a bridge over the Tsavo River as part of the Uganda railway line from Mombasa to Lake Victoria in Uganda. The man-eating took place  until John Henry Patterson, a military officer working on the railway line,  hunted them down and stopped the man-eating spree.

With these stories swimming in our thoughts we entered Tsavo West National Park at the Chyulu gate in the north west of the park. We had just driven through the Tsavo West entrance when we came across a pair of White-bellied Korhaans. This was sign of interesting sightings to come.

Tsavo West National Park, covers an area of just over 9,000 sq. km. This park has wide savannah plains, hilly landscapes, lava flows, springs, large permanent rivers and its southern boundary is the border with Tanzania.

“A moment’s insight is sometimes worth a life’s experience”.
~Oliver Wendall Holmes

About four kilometres west of the Chyulu gate inside Tsavo West National Park are the Shetani lava flows. ‘Shetani ’ means ‘devil’ in Kiswahili. These flows occurred a few hundred years ago and local peoples believed that it was the devil himself emerging from the earth. This vast expanse of folded black lava spread across the savannah at the foot of the Chyulu Hills. These larva flows are a reminder that as old as this area is some of the tectonic activity was recent.

The Shetani Lava Flow is a black lava expanse eight kilometres long, 1.6 kilometres wide and averages five meters deep. We walked over the hardened larva flow. Its surface was very hard and jagged. We did not see any animals on this dark stark landscape for very good reason. The surface was hostile for any living thing with just the odd tree and tuft of grass or creeper managing to gain its footing. Perhaps sufficient dust had gathered into pockets in the larva to sustain this limited flora.

The last major eruption in this area is believed to have taken place around 200  and 240 years ago, a fraction of a second in geological terms.

“Knowledge gained through experience is far superior and many times more useful than bookish knowledge.”
~Mahatma Gandhi

Sammy, our driver and guide – a man with a great sense of humour, excellent knowledge of the parks and their wildlife and birdlife,  and a man with eagle eyes.

This larva flow was like nothing I had ever seen before. Very interesting and different but I have to admit I prefer savannah, woodlands and sand roads.

The entrance to the Kilaguni Serena lodge. This is one of the oldest lodges in Kenya and still well cared for.

As we walked through the entrance onto the veranda, we looked out onto an incredible view of the Chyulu Hills.

Directly in front of the lodge were two waterholes and the area was covered in red soil. The animals also took on this red colour. The elephants and zebra were noticeably red.

Southern White-crowned Shrike minding its own business on the side of the road. I find it quite incredible that some five thousand kilometres north of South Africa you will find the same birds – adaptive, genetic survivors. The fact they have not changed shape or colour tells me there is something about these birds which enables them to move around a continent intact.

“Experience is a jewel, and it had need be so, for it is often purchased at an infinite rate.”
~William Shakespeare

We were starting to get a sense of the unusual landscapes in this park, when we got our first of many firsts, a lesser Kudu. The lesser Kudu has a single white stripe running down its back and white stripes running off this central stripe down the sides. The males do not have the bearded neck. Instead their neck is a plain dark grey-brown colour with two white  horizontal stripes. The horns and shape of the lesser Kudu are similar to their larger cousin but the Lesser Kudu is around two-thirds the size of a Greater Kudu which we see frequently in southern Africa and is closely related to the Nyala. It feeds primarily at dusk and dawn, and is a mainly a browser eating leaves, shrubs, twigs but will also eat grasses, herbs and roots. The Lesser Kudu has adapted to hydrating from the moisture collected in leaves.  

The next image is of one of the volcanic rock outcrops we saw on the way down onto the river valley floor. We were half expecting to see a large raptor sitting on a prominent rock or a Klipspringer looking down at us.

This Black-backed Jackal was scavenging something on the black larva soil when it looked up to see what we were doing.

We then travelled south-west of the lodge into a very mountainous area. On the way we found this unusually dark male Masai Giraffe. Giraffes’ “pelage” varies in colour with age, usually the spots change from sienna-brown in the young to coal- black blotches in the old. Another way to get a sense of their age is to look at how worn their ossicones are and how big the bone protrudence is on the males forehead.

“One learns from books and example only that certain things can be done. Actual learning requires that you do those things.”
~ Frank Herbert

After an interesting and bumpy drive down into the valley, we found a young female elephant lying on the ground. After seeing so many elephants sleeping in Amboseli, we thought this elephant was just resting. Unfortunately, we found out later that she had died from wounds from a poacher’s spear, which had become infected. There are no doctors in the bush!!!! 

Down in the river below the fallen girl elephant was this “lightning bird” or Hammerkop.  The lightning bird is a mythological creature in the folklore of the tribes of South Africa. The impundulu (which translates as “lightning bird”) takes the form of a black and white bird, the size of a person, which is said to summon thunder and lightning with its wings and talons. With a little luck that thunder and lightning will be directed at that poacher!!!

We found d’Arnaud’s Barbet in the undergrowth down near the river, waving its tail and noisily trilling.

The Hornbills were also different in this part of the world. This was a Von der Decken’s Hornbill.

“All your life you’re yellow. Then one day you brush up against something blue, the barest touch, and voila, the rest of your life you’re green.”
~ Tess Callahan

Another first, this was a gorgeous Golden Breasted Starling. This was a male, the female looks similar but her head and shoulders are much duller.

We desperately tried to get closer to get a better shot but this wiley bird kept its distance.

Yet another first was this Kirk’s dik-dik. This is a small antelope much like a duiker but it has a prehensile nose. This particular character was a male as the female does not have horns. Dik-diks are some of the world’s smallest antelopes. The largest of the group is the Kirk’s dik-dik, standing between 14 and 18 inches tall and weighing no more than 7.2 kg. The dik-dik has a hairy proboscis with tiny slit-like nostrils. This proboscis contains an enlarged nasal chamber which is supplied with a rich amount of blood that is cooled via rapid nasal panting.

A dik-dik would make an easy meal for this young Martial Eagle, only it was  much further down the river near a large herd of buffalo.

Down on the valley floor we were watching a large herd of buffalo around a waterhole as more and more buffalo streamed in along the valley floor for a drink of water and to join the herd.

“To my mind the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted”.

~Bill Bryson

Even the go-away birds are different in this part of the world. This was a White-bellied Go-away bird. There were many in the park and they behaved just like our Grey Louries.

Some familiar faces, this pair of Egyptian geese and their five goslings were waddling away from the small waterhole to a safer place away from the multitude of black legs.

Also looking for a drink at the waterhole were a small herd of Coke’s Hartebeest.

The pelage pattern of a Masai giraffe. There are nine different pelage patterns of the giraffe in Africa. Each has a distinct pattern and colour according to its specific geographic location.

I cringe just looking at this male Masai giraffe wrapping its tongue around these acacia  leaves and thorns.

This was the gathering herd of buffalo down at one of the small dams along the valley floor. I converted to image to black and white to tease out the drama of the gathering herd.

The heavy cumulus clouds added to the drama of the waterhole setting. Further drama was added by the knowledge that where there are buffalo there are sure to be lions.

“The purpose of life is to live it, taste experience to its utmost, to reach out eagerly without fear for a newer  and richer experience.”

~Eleanor Roosevelt

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

Simon, Jocelin and I had five wonderful days in Amboseli during our photographic safari with Andrew and Sammy from Wild-Eye. Amboseli is the most amazing place to visit as a photographer because of the incredible diversity of habitat, wildlife and birdlife. This is the last post from Amboseli and hopefully shows some of that diversity.

“Africa – You can see a sunset and believe you have witnessed the Hand of God. You watch the slope lope of a lioness and forget to breathe. You marvel at the tripod of a giraffe bent to water. In Africa, there are iridescent blues on the wings of birds that you do not see anywhere else in nature. In Africa, in the midday heart, you can see blisters in the atmosphere. When you are in Africa, you feel primordial, rocked in the cradle of the world.”

~ Jodi Picoult

Around 6h30 we left the Serena Lodge nestled in an acacia forest in the south of the park. Travelling north up to the acacia forest in the Oltukai area we found a troop of Olive baboons and this Yellow-throated Spurfowl. It was early in the morning so the sun was not out yet but this character stood and posed for us. It must have been a female as it did not have a pronounced spur on the back of its legs. The males need the spurs to fight for dominance and territory. I have found that you can try over and over again to photograph a species with little luck then out of the blue one character poses beautifully. This was one of those occasions.

This female spurfowl was quite relaxed standing on top of a berm on a drainage line. Spurfowl are generally cryptic in colouring but always have   definitive colouring around their head.

On into the acacia forest where the Oltukai lodge is nestled. Baboons seem to love this area perhaps because it offers protection and food. On the side of the road a male Olive baboon and his female sat close together. Within the hairy tangle emerged this very young baboon.

This youngster was cradled within his mother’s thigh and seemed to be sucking his thumb – genetic cognisance!

The male was an impressive character who looked like he was up for any sort of territorial tangle.

On our travels around the Olokenya swamp we found this lone Serval wandering parallel to the road about 20 metres into the grass. The Serval is characterised by a small head, large ears, a golden-yellow to buff coat spotted and striped with black, and a short, black-tipped tail. The Serval has the longest legs of any cat relative to its body size. This character looked to be out hunting. It came to a drainage ditch and instead of walking around, it jumped straight over the water filled ditch. Servals have very strong back legs and are known for their ability to jump high into the air to catch doves and guineafowl.

“One cannot resist the lure of Africa.”

~ Rudyard Kipling

In true cat style, this character was confident and walked through the long grass ever alert with those big ears moving backwards and forwards like radar scanners.

This Serval knew where it was going and stopped to take in different smells. As an observer you get the impression that all the smells help form a picture of who passes by and the state they are/were in.

Once out of the grass, the Serval’s colouring was very distinctive. It stopped to scratch its ear with its back leg. These creatures are so lithe.

Further on this African Hoopoe was foraging on the ground and hopped onto a log to get a better view of the goings on around it. They are beautiful birds with a distinctive onomatopoeic trisyllabic “oop-oop-oop” call.

Past the Oltukai forest we travelled west towards the Amboseli lake. It is dry for most of the time. On the edge of the dry lake bed we stopped to photograph some trees and this small herd of wildebeest wandering through the grass fringe.

“The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders.”

~Edward Abbey

The Amboseli lake lies on the west side of the park. The lake bed is huge and desolate.

As it got hotter, the heat waves began to form a mirage and the legs of the zebra began to shimmer.

Plenty of game cross this lake bed including zebra, wildebeest, ostriches and elephants.

The lake bed is dry and the fine alluvial mud forms interesting patterns when it dries. Naturally forming mud cracks start as wet, muddy sediment and desiccates, causing contraction. The top layer shrinks faster than the underneath layer causing the crack.

A sign of a large pachyderm having passed this way!

This elephant must have crossed the dry lake bed to get to the long grass and swamps on the south east side.

We found this bull who we had watched walk around the side of the lake. The bulls are impressive in Amboseli. They are big and some of the older “boys” have huge tusks.

“In Africa you have space…there is a profound sense of space here, space and sky.”

~ Thabo Mbeki

Having looked around the dry lake bed we travelled east. It was fun watching a long line of wildebeest cross this pool of water. They could have walked around but they chose to wade through the water. They must have some primal instinct that tells them to speed up when they walk through water, perhaps because of the danger lurking under the water.

As soon as the water got deep, the wildebeest would try and jump out of the water.

“The truth is: the natural world is changing. And we are totally dependent on that world. It provides our food, water and air. It is the most precious thing we have and we need to defend it.”

~David Attenborough

A little further east we found a hyaena den. This old female seemed to have be ostracised from the clan and had only one or two clan members who were prepared to tolerate her. It certainly looks as if life has been tough on her.

We then headed south toward a fever tree forest near the Enkongo Narok swamp. An old dead tree stump looked to be a favourite lookout and congregating point for this troop of Olive baboons. A place for earnest discussion!

All the youngsters were looking very mature on top of the tree stump conferring with each other.

That was until the boss came along, then the game was deference.

“Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.”

~Gary Snyder

The baboons were looking onto a fever tree forest. This forest was fenced off to protect it from the elephants and looked to be a preferred place for the giraffe. Research shows that giraffe in different regions of sub-Saharan Africa have different coat patterns. The pelage of these giraffe and the location made me think they were Masai Giraffe, one of nine distinct species in Africa.

Amazingly, the long white acacia thorns seemed to be no deterrent for these voracious vegetarians. 

These fever trees have a beautiful green-yellow bark which seems to ooze a dark brown resin, probably because of some close attention from a number of large animals in the past.

The giraffe were not the only ones to enjoy this fever tree forest. Some elephant found their way through gaps in the fence.

The fence seemed to help protect the forest from the elephants, though a few canny individuals managed to find a way in and looked to be thoroughly enjoying themselves.

Beyond the fever tree forest, we moved down at a small dam along the Kioko road. Next to the road by the dam, we found this hive of African bees in an acacia tree.

It was interesting to see that the natural form of this hive was a cone shape. From the small dam we drove down to the lake and swamp below Observation Hill. The bird life was superb along this stretch of water. There were quite a few Collared Pratincoles in this area. One found a blue dragonfly and was  trying to  subdue it in order to swallow it.

″A traveler without observation is a bird without wings.”

~ Moslih Eddin Saadi

After some considerable maneuvering it finally got the blue dragonfly into a position it could swallow it.

It does not appear that these birds taste what they are eating although I am sure some birds can taste their food. I know that birds do not like the taste of Monarch butterflies and I am not sure whether sunbirds can taste their nectar or whether they just recognise the flowers which produce it.

There were also many Spur-winged Lapwings. This pair were ensuring the continuation of the species. It always intrigues me that the female never seems to buckle under the weight of the male.

Now this is something I had never seen before, Black-winged Stilt chicks. They must have been days old and looked just like Jacana chicks but for their lack of long toes.

The Black-winged Stilt mother was very busy fending off all other birds near her chicks.

The stilt chicks would tuck under their mother’s wing just like Jacanas do their father’s. The Black winged Stilt mother had to get down onto her knees so her chicks could nestle under her wings. The Jacana mother is usually no where to be seen as their father is their guardian. Both Jacana and Stilt chicks look to be precocial.

“You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.”

~ Mark Twain

This little bundle of fluff seemed to be quite independent when its parent was away.

The Spur-winged Lapwings were also highly protective and territorial. This character had to nosedive to get out of the way of a stooping opponent.

In contrast to the dry Amboslei lake bed earlier in the day, along the lower reaches of the swamp we watched this contented pod of hippos enjoying the warmth under the cloudy sky.

“Amboseli” comes from a Masai word meaning “salty dust”, and it is one of the best places in Africa to view large herds of elephants up close. There are five different habitats to explore ranging from the dried-up bed of Lake Amboseli, wetlands with sulphur springs, grassland plains, savannah and acacia and fever tree woodlands. There is a vast array of mammals and a much bigger variety of bird life than I ever expected. We had a wonderful and interesting five days exploring Amboseli. Five days is not nearly enough so I will be coming back. From Amboseli Andrew and Sammy took us on to Tsavo West further down in the south east of Kenya to explore another interesting game park.

“Live out of your imagination, not your history”.

~Stephen Covey

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

At the southern part of the park is the Oliotokitok road which extends from the Oltukai acacia forest passed the OloKenya swamp down to the Olkelunyiet gate in the south-east corner of the park.

“The continent is too large to describe. It is a veritable ocean, a separate planet, a varied, immensely rich cosmos. Only with the greatest simplification, for the sake of convenience, can we say ‘Africa’. In reality, except as a geographical appellation, Africa does not exist.”
― Ryszard Kapuściński

Down at the southern most point of the OloKenya swamp there are three hippo pools. Sure enough in one of the pools there was a hippo and it was keeping an eye on a Fish Eagle on the bank preparing its recently caught barbel meal.

 Grey Crowned Cranes were frequently seen on the periphery of the swamp. This pair was flying in to feed on the bounty around the swamp.

“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveller is unaware”

~Martin Buber

I was jesting with Simon Beevers and Andrew Beck that the Mount Kilimanjaro was a figment of their imagination. For the first three days of our time in Amboseli the mountain was shrouded in thick cloud cover. At last on the fourth morning, they were redeemed as the sun prevailed and pushed the clouds away for a short while. Mount Kilimanjaro looked like a pudding with icing on top. It was quite incongruent to see dusty dry grasslands in the foreground and a snow-capped mountain in the background.

Along the Oliotokitok road driving towards the Olkelunyiet gate there was grassland on the left hand side and acacia woodlands on the right. I liked the unlikely combination of a huge Martial Eagle sitting in a large acacia tree in front of this massive snow-capped mountain in the middle of hot dusty Africa. Just another example of the amazing contrasts which can be found in Africa.

It was  reasonably early so the sun was still relatively low resulting in rim lighting around some of the animals on the left hand side of the road. This was a lone male Olive baboon wandering through the low grass.

He stopped to sit and look at us and show us how boring he thought we were!! He got our attention with those canines.

A little further along the road on at the top of one of the tall acacia trees was an African Hawk Eagle. It had a wonderful vantage point from which too look for prey and competitors. African Hawk Eagles are particularly aggressive raptors.

The Impala favoured the transition zone along the acacia woodland. This calf enjoyed its mother’s offering.

“There is language going on out there, the language of the wild. Roars, snorts, trumpets, squeals, whoops, and chirps all have meaning derived over eons of expression… We have yet to become fluent in the language – music of the wild.”
~ Boyd Norton

On the way back from getting some paperwork sorted out at the gate we found two lionesses emerging from the elephant grass. They looked to be on a mission with intent in their eyes. I am always impressed by the power exuded from their  forelegs and shoulders.

Although it looks flat there are many gullies and drainage lines which enable the lions to get close to the quarry without being seen.

“People don’t take trips.

Trips take people.”

~John Steinbeck

This lioness spotted some zebra in the distance on the other side of the swamp. There is a look a lion gets when it locks onto its intended quarry.

It took about twenty minutes for this lioness to get into position by using the cover of a drainage line. The wind must have been in her favour as she got close without the zebra being aware that the  death squad was closing in.

Something must have happened, perhaps the wind changed direction but in an instant the hunt was thwarted because the zebra picked up her position. You could see the lioness’s irritation by the overt flick of the tail, she was probably growling too. Not long after being compromised she shrunk down into the grass again so the zebras could not see her. They decided to move on and another group started wandering past but they must have seen their predecessors and gave the lioness a wide berth.

Further along the road we found wildebeests dusting themselves. They seem to really enjoy rubbing their backs and flanks in the dust.

Also along the Oliotokitok road we found a female Cheetah and her adolescent cub wandering along the acacia tree line. Her slightly arched back indicated that she was uncomfortable about something and was getting out of the way.

“Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful,  we must carry it with us or we find it not.”

~Henry David Thoreau

Having crossed the road onto the woodland side she seemed to settle down into a much more relaxed gait. Although relaxed she was continually looking a round.

Looking south west toward Mount Kilimanjaro, this female Cheetah has seen some Thompson’s Gazelle grazing in the open grassland in the middle distance.

“We live in a wonderful world full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventure we can have if we only seek them with our eyes open.”

~Jawaharial Nehru

This Cheetah mother and her cub were very wary in the woodland surroundings because their surroundings possibly concealed aggressive, competitive predators, such as lions, hyaenas and leopards.

Cheetahs have the speed but they also have to be wary of other predators seeking up behind them.

I took this landscape image to show how big the land  and sky is around here.

This Cheetah mother was ever vigilant. Interestingly, she and her adolescent cub never walked together, probably so they never got caught together by predators.

This Cheetah cub must have been the last remaining survivor of the litter. The others were probably lost to predators or hunger. This youngster was very wary, understandably.

The acacia woodland showed a very different face of Amboseli. Despite the human population around the park, the dead wood inside the park did not seem to have been touched.

A White-headed Buffalo Weaver looked to be cutting stems of grass for its nest.

“Long before the stars died the birds began to sing – cool rippling doves, loud cheery starlings, the long lilting trills of warblers and thrushes.”
~ Mike Bond

Lilac-breasted Rollers love eating insects. This one seemed to have got an insect lodged in its throat and was trying to regurgitate it – without much success.

I hope this post showed yet another side to the amazing diversity of habitat and wildlife that you are likely to find in your travels through Amboseli.

“Like all great travellers, I have seen more than I remember, and I remember more than I have seen”

~Benjamin Disraeli

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike