One of my favorite animal portraits – This Lioness just finished her Giraffe dinner (first course!) – The Lions must have killed the Giraffe just minutes before we arrived, judging by the color of the blood.
Bloody Face!
New York Times
One of my images was published in the New York Times on 27 October 🙂
PANTHERA – Post on 27 October 2015
‘Pick up your copy of The New York Times today and flip to page A11 to read about a study co-authored by Panthera and published yesterday that unveils new findings on declining lion populations in key regions of Africa.
You can also catch up on the NYTimes article online @ http://nyti.ms/1POYIU4 and read Panthera President Dr. Luke Hunter’s explanation on the far-reaching impact of the catastrophic loss of Africa’s lions: “You start pulling at the threads of these big complicated ecosystems, and they start unraveling.”
Learn what Panthera is doing across Africa to protect one of our planet’s most celebrated species @ http://bit.ly/1N37dZM.
Special thanks to Christian Sperka Photography and Nick Garbutt Wildlife Photography for the generous use of their lion photos in this feature!’
What a sound!
One of my uncles bought this old tube radio in 1954. It is still in working order and has a great sound! But here is an interesting question: Why did he buy the radio – a very expensive item – in 1954? He had a very good reason – the answer will be on the next post 🙂
Organization! (2)
I am working on organizing all the Wildlife images, which I took between 2001 and 2010. This is a major undertaking which will take me many month.
But one of the rewards of this -sometime tedious – work is that I find some good images I have never published before. Here is one of them. Three hunting Lionesses.
Sorry to say, but there will be no further wildlife posts for the next two weeks. I will be back on Thanda on 8 November.
A new place and a trip to Europe
This week I had the opportunity to have a look at Pongola Game Reserve, a beautiful property with seven lodges. I stayed for a night and took a lot of images during two boat cruises on the Pongola River. It was very enjoyable 🙂 I hope to be back soon!
And now I am in Pretoria, getting ready for a trip to Europe. I am looking forward to seeing my family and friends in Germany and Switzerland.
Sorry to say, but there will be no wildlife posts for the next two weeks. I will be back on Thanda on 8 November.
The collage above shows three images I took at Pongola Game Reserve – White Rhinos at sunset, Nkwazi Lake Lodge and a sunset shot, taken during a boat cruise on the river.
Imagine …
What an evening …
Imagine at the end of your evening game drive your field guide just stops the vehicle on top of hill. He and his tracker switch off all the vehicle’s lights and everyone agrees to keep quiet for a few minutes; listening to the bush sounds and observing the night sky. Then, unexpected, a Giraffe steps out of the tree line and walks in front of the sky, lending its silhouette to this very African scene.
That was the perfect ending to a Thanda game drive!
NB: The image is slightly blurry, but it gives an idea of this beautiful setting. For the photographer’s among you this picture was taken of a bean bag, f/2.8, 2sec, ISO6400,25mm.
Picture by Christian Sperka – Specialist Photography Guide and Resident Wildlife Photographer – Thanda Private Game Reserve
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Organization!
I am working on organizing all the Wildlife images, which I took between 2001 and 2010. This is a major undertaking which will take me many month.
But one of the rewards of this -sometime tedious – work is that I find some good images I have never published before. Here is one of them. Three Cheetah cubs watching their mum going off to hunt.
Precious 🙂
A brotherly fight!
As many other peoples – who have existed for a long time – the Zulu people have a lot of customs and traditions.
I am now living for over three years in Zululand and I have tried to learn about the Zulus as much as possible. Even if I have not improved my Zulu language skills by much (isiZulu is quite difficult to learn and I am a bit on the lazy side when it comes to learning languages) I was able to observe quite a lot. Bheki Ngubane, my Zulu tracker and friend, has taught me much about his people and I was invited on some special days to the local communities.
This is a picture of Bheki (on the right) having a friendly ‘demonstration’ fight with his brother Mbongeni. When the Zulus have an occasion to celebrate – for example at a wedding – the men like to test their strength in such fights. A specially appointed Induna yenzinsizwa (fight leader) makes sure that these confrontations do not get out of hand. In this picture both brothers wear traditional men’s cloths, made from animal skins, mainly from cows and goats. And do not worry; the leopard skins around their necks are artificially made. Nowadays such traditional attire is mostly worn on special occasions and also when going to church services (similar to ‘Kilts in Scotland’ and ‘Lederhosen in Bavaria’).
Behki is a typical example of a Zulu man, living in a rural area. He wears modern cloth, works on Thanda as a tracker, drives a small car, uses cell phone technology to communicate with his family and friends – mostly by texting – and enjoys watching TV at his room at base camp.
But he is also the husband to two wives, has nine children and lives with his family on a large plot of land on Lake St.Lucia. At his home he has no access to electricity or to running water. His first wife and some her older children spend part of their days collecting water for a central point in the community and collecting firewood from the forest. Bheki comes from a very traditional background. His father had eight wives, 40 daughters and 25 sons. As a married man – with more than one wife – Bheki is a much respected man in his local community. It helps that the local Induna yesizwe (equivalent to a major) is his uncle and the Inkhosi (equivalent to a chief or governor) of his community is his nephew :-).
Quite a few of my blog followers have expressed interest in these subjects, so over the next couple month I will write a few more blogs about Zulu customs and traditions, and always with pictures 🙂
Please let me know if you have any questions or interest in specific topics and I will try to cover them. Siyabonga (Thank you in isiZulu).
Just below the Lodge!
This morning I was taking some landscape picture on the western part of the reserve. On the way back I decided to drive a different route home and pass by the Lodge. And I found our dominant male Lion having a rest in the morning sun. I called in the game drives and all our guests enjoyed this beautiful sighting 🙂
This morning Thanda’s dominant male Lion was lying just below the Thanda Safari Lodge. He enjoyed the morning sun on a very pleasant summer day.
And our guests appreciated the – up close and personal – sighting of this beautiful cat.
Picture by Christian Sperka – Specialist Photography Guide and Resident Wildlife Photographer – Thanda Private Game Reserve
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Rosettes
A two nights stay at Thanda = Great sightings (the weather gods were on our side) and some excellent photo opportunities for our guests – I love my job!
Spotting the rosettes of this male Leopard completed the ‘Big Five’ sightings for a group of Swedish Thanda guests during their stay.
On only three drives they encountered a breeding herd of Elephants moving across the reserve, a South Pride Lioness drinking at a small waterhole, a Spotted Hyena scouting, the Thanda North Pride of Lions running into a crash of White Rhinoceros and a journey of Giraffes, Vervet Monkeys eyeing the safari vehicle with suspicion, Lions on a Zebra kill, two male Cheetah resting in the morning sun, a Zebra mum and her calf on the move, Blue Wildebeest avoiding the Cheetahs, a herd of Buffalo disturbing three Kudu bulls at their morning drinks stop, a Common Duiker accelerating very fast, and many groups of Nyala and of Impala browsing and grazing. And just before a beautiful sunset the Leopard was the last sighting of the day and of these guests’ visit to…
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