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).
This evening I took this picture of two young Thanda Lionesses chasing a Warthog. The pig got away and the two ladies had to continue their hunt for dinner.
… on a very hot day mammals are just not available for sightings on game drives. They hide in the shade of thick bush and are not visible at all.
At such times smaller creatures like spiders can provide beautiful material for wildlife photography.
On Sunday afternoon I took some guests on a drive down ‘spider alley’ and we observed these fascinating creatures waiting patiently for prey or devouring it.
Here are some of the pictures taken of Golden Orb Spiders, Garden Orb Spiders and Bark Spiders.
My guests enjoyed this special arachnid drive very much!
Yesterday I was able to participate and photo-document a very special operation. A specialist surgeon operated on one of our male Cheetah to ‘re-build’ a torn ligament in the cat’s left leg.
During the procedure I was sitting in a good photo position behind the large carnivore and I was assigned an additional job. Every few minutes I had to tickle inside the Cheetah’s ear to see if there was any reaction like twitching or growling. That way the vet could judge if more drugs were needed to keep the cat asleep. A very special task not part of my usual job description!
Yesterday was a very lucky day. I had two beautiful snake sightings and was able to take two good pictures.
The first sighting was a Spotted Bush Snake moving (hunting) up a staircase with an Nyala bull having a drink in the background.
The second sighting was a Puff Adder resting in the middle of the road gathering the warms from the road. I guided this one to safely of the road, so it would not get run over.