Love and Hate!

I love Land Rovers and I hate them!

Thanda3 is out of commission again, this time it is the front diff which is currently being replaced 😦

If I am lucky, I will have the vehicle back tomorrow evening. In the meantime I am driving a “Luxury Vehicle”, one of the newest Land Rovers, which is usually used for community trips. It got an (in-) convenient roof, which makes it quite difficult to go off-road on game drive.

Well, tomorrow is another day 🙂

And the picture of the day is a black&white image of a Harem of Zebra!

 

This time it’s me!

Quite a few of my friends have asked if there are ever any picture with me on game drive.

Well, this shot was taken by Jo Perry, one of the African Impact Volunteers (Thanks for letting me use the picture :-).

I was explaining the “circle of life” after one of our sunset shots at our largest waterhole (I was kneeling on my driver’s seat!)

 

 

Friend or Foe?

These two adult male Lions on Thanda are working on their relationship 🙂

For the last few days they have been “hanging out” together. They have been seen fighting, roaring at one another, scent marking in front of each other and for most of the time just resting in a few meters distance from one another or just walking down the road.

This morning we found them resting on the side of a road, then having a go at one another before settling down to rest again.

It will be interesting to see how this “male bonding” will end!

Point of View

If you ever thought how it looks from the Lion’s point of view when we photographer’s shoot in the bush. Here is the answer 🙂

We were watching the Thanda North Pride feasting on a Wilderbeest kill. The young male was observing us closely …

… while his sister played with the Wilderbeest tail!

 

And for the photographers among my blog readers here are the technical info about the images:

Picture 1 – Camera Canon 1D Mark IV – Canon Lens L 28-300mm – at 130mm – 1/1600sec – f/5.6 – ISO 3200 – +1eV – freehand

Picture 2 – Camera Canon 1D Mark IV – Canon Lens L 28-300mm – at 300mm – 1/500sec – f/5.6 – ISO 400 – +/-0eV – freehand

Picture 3 – Camera Canon 1D Mark IV – Canon Lens L 28-300mm – at 220mm – 1/1000sec – f/5.6 – ISO 1600 – -0.33eV – freehand

More of Mkuze …

As promised here are a few more pictures from my day at Mkuze Game Reserve.

Have a great week!

White Rhino (with mudded horn)

White Rhino

Brown-hooded Kingfisher (bathing)

Brown-hooded Kingfisher

Purple-crested Turaco

Cape Turtle Dove (landing)

Blue Waxbill

Crested Barbet

 

Technical Data – for photographers 🙂

Rhino – Picture 1 – Camera Canon 1D Mark IV – Lens Canon L f/4.0-500mm – 1/2000sec – f/4.5 – ISO 400 – +/-0eV – freehand

Rhino – Picture 2 – Camera Canon 1D Mark IV – Lens Canon L f/2.8-300mm – 1/1250sec – f/2.8 – ISO 400 – +/-0eV – freehand

Kingfisher – Picture 3 – Camera Canon 1D Mark IV – Lens Canon L 28-300mm – at 150mm – 1/2000sec – f/5.6 – ISO 800 – +0.67eV – freehand

Kingfisher – Picture 4 – Camera Canon 1D Mark IV – Lens Canon L f/4.0-500mm + 1.4Ext at 700mm – 1/500sec – f/5.6 – ISO 200 – +/-0eV – freehand

Turaco – Picture 5 – Camera Canon 1D Mark IV – Lens Canon L f/4.0-500mm + 1.4Ext at 700mm – 1/500sec – f/5.6 – ISO 200 – +/-0eV – freehand

Dove – Picture 6 – Camera Canon 1D Mark IV – Lens Canon L f/4.0-500mm – 1/5000sec – f/4.5 – ISO 800 – -0.67eV – freehand

Waxbill – Picture 7 – Camera Canon 1D Mark IV – Lens Canon L f/4.0-500mm + 1.4Ext at 700mm – 1/800sec – f/5.6 – ISO 200 – -1.00eV – freehand

Barbet – Picture 8 – Camera Canon 1D Mark IV – Lens Canon L f/4.0-500mm – 1/3200sec – f/4 – ISO 400 – -0.67eV – freehand

 

 

Battle at Thanda – YouTube Video

A lot of people have asked me if they were more images of the Battle at Thanda.

(Blog message from 9 July 2012 https://christiansperka.wordpress.com/2012/07/09/battle-at-thanda/).

Here is link to a YouTube Video with video footage and with more images of the interaction:

CAUTION: PLEASE DO NOT PLAY THE VIDEO IF YOU ARE DISTURBED BY WILD ANIMAL INTERACTION VIDEOS AND PICTURES!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOEe5QeiKuU

Thanks to Mariana Venter for letting me use the video footage and some of the images she took at the encounter.

Force of Nature, Rhino Spa and Purple Beauty

As I am having this weekend off I went today into Mkuze Game Reserve and spent the whole day at the hides on the reserve. I got many very good pictures and will share a few of them with you over the next few weeks (on “Slow Thanda Days” :-)).

For today I have picked three pictures.

The first is titled “Force of Nature”. Four White Rhino made their way straight to the waterhole. From the angle this picture is taken they certainly look loke a force of nature.

The second picture is of a White Rhino bull having a “Rhino Spa” mud treatment. He enjoyed himself thoroughly walling on the side of the waterhole.

The third picture is of Purple-crested Turcao, one of my favorite birds in South Africa, a “Purple-crested Beauty”.

More pictures will follow tomorrow. Have a great Sunday!

Relaxed!

No “Big Five” on this afternoon’s game drive, but we had a photo session with the most relaxed Black-backed Jackal I have ever seen. He lay in front of the car, yawned, walked in front of us, dug up some goodies to eat and finally went after another Jackal (probably of the opposite sex :-)).

We also had a fantastic sunrise this morning!

G&T at Sunset

Today we took all volunteers up to a nice spot to have a G&T at sunset 🙂

A very enjoyable way to end a day!

Return from Town!

When I returned from a day in Richards Bay two male Cheetahs were greeting me at the gate guard house (These Cheetah are very used to the gate traffic and ignore the guard in the building – he is perfectly safe :-)).

And once I had returned to Thanda house two Zebra had a good fight in front of the fence (the “whitish” distortions in the picture).

Before the sun set a female Scarlet-breasted Sunbird was looking for food in one of the trees in front for my room.

There is never a dull moment on Thanda, even after a day in town!