Christian Sperka is a wildlife photographer based at Thanda Private Game Reserve, Kwazulu Natal, South Africa.
Over the last 11 years, Christian has traveled the world photographing animals in wild game reserves of South Africa and Namibia, the jungles of Costa Rica, in Yellowstone National Park in the USA, as well as zoos in Europe and the United States. His work has been featured in wildlife magazines, in books and in many zoo publications.
He actively supports wild cat conservation, working as a partner photographer for Panthera, the world's leading organization devoted to the conservation of all wild cat species (panthera.org).
From 2009 to 2012 he has worked as the official photographer and photography teacher at Nashville Zoo at Grassmere, Tennessee, USA (nashvillezoo.org).
Christian is also a qualified South African field guide. He now works as specialist photography guide on Thanda Private Game Reserve in Kwazulu Natal, South Africa (thanda.com).
… is the term for an old Cape Buffalo bull who is no longer with a herd. As this specimen demonstrated last night at Thanda, such bulls love to wallow in mud as means to cool down and to give them some protection from parasites and the sun.
Such solitary bulls are extremely dangerous as they are notoriously bad tempered and ready to attack at any time.
Two days ago we did a short night drive and we saw Spotted Eagle Owls, a White-faced Owl, Side-striped Jackals, a Bush-Baby (Brown Thick-tailed Galagos), a White-tailed Mongoose and a few Bark Spiders, who build every evening precision-webs to catch prey during the night.
The next morning they eat their own webs to preserve the protein for the coming night’s master-building session 😊
An ‘airborne’ Impala female in sprinting mode at Pakamisa! As with most herd-prey-species good photo opportunities occur once the flight instinct kicks in. If one of them starts running for whatever reason the others will follow.
ALL PROCEEDS FROM THE BOOK SALES WILL GO TO THE INKANYISO CRÈCHE PROJECT
Early last year a young man from Germany by the name of Leon Wobbe spent eight weeks as a Ulwazi volunteer on Thanda Safari. He brought along his camera equipment and I taught him wildlife photography. Besides taking many pictures on Thanda Safari we also went together on photography trips to the Sabi Sands Game Reserve, to Kruger National Park and to the iSimangaliso Wetland Park.
We created a coffee table book about Leon’s 8 weeks and my 8 years in South Africa. It includes some of our best pictures and a few stories about our South African adventures. I am very proud and grateful that I was able to provide my pictures and stories to the book and I enjoyed very much creating this ‘little piece of South African art’ together with Leon.
The text is written in German and in English and the book has 96 pages. It is available for sale at the Thanda Safari curio shops or directly from me (It can be be sent out world-wide via courier if requested / courier fees are extra). The local price for the book is ZAR490 (~EUR30 or ~USD35). All proceeds from the book sales will go directly towards the Inkanyiso Crèche Project (which got its own chapter in the book). Anyone who wants to pay more as a donation to the crèche is very welcome. Some of my friends from around the world and I support the Inkanyiso Crèche Project since 2018.
A digital version of the book (PDF) is also for sale for R200 (or more :-). The income from these ‘digital sales’ will also go towards the crèche.
For information about the project and/or to order the 8 WEEKS and 8 YEARS book (hard copy or PDF) please contact me at info@sperka.com.