christian sperka – Page 150 – Christian Sperka Photography

2014-10-202014-10-19

A Rainbow over the Lebombo Mountains, a Road Block and two Freezing Cheetah!

As it happens during this time of the year strong winds frequently follow heavy rains. On our afternoon game drive we first encountered a beautiful rainbow over the Lebombo mountains, then we met with Thanda’s breeding herd of Elephants.

One of our largest bulls gave an excellent demonstration on “how to create a perfect road block”, right in front of the vehicle.

Last but not least Bheki – one of Thanda’s most experienced Zulu tracker – found the two Cheetah brothers on the open savannah. They were huddling together in the freezing wind.

Not a bad drive for a very windy day!

2014-10-182014-11-23

No camera :-) :-(

What an evening.

As I drove up to the Lodge on Friday evening – for a meeting – a Leopard appeared around a corner in front of my vehicle and calmly walked up the road for about ten minutes, illuminated by my headlights, before settling down next to my car in the bushes.

On the way home an Aardvark crossed the road in front of me and stayed for about five minutes on the road, just sniffing around.

Now that was the good part of the evening, the bad part was that I had no camera with me. A beginner’s mistake!

But I will never forget these sightings, especially my first Aardvark on Thanda.

These two images are of similar sightings a few years ago (with camera :-))

2014-10-12

What cat is that? – The answers!

… here we go … (answer to https://sperka.info/2014/10/10/what-cat-is-that/)

Snow Leopard, Pallas’Cat (or Manul), Tiger, Lion, Clouded Leopard, Jaguarundi, Cheetah, Serval, Jaguar, African Wild Cat, Leopard, Cougar (or Mountain Lion or Puma), Caracal and Eurasian Lynx.

2014-10-10

What cat is that?

A short quiz for the cat lovers among you!

These are 16 pictures of 14 different cat species – what species are they?

What cat am I?

2014-10-09

Oldies but goodies!

Oldies but goodies – one of my favourite Lion images ever 🙂

2014-10-082014-10-07

Just cows? Not so much ….

Sometimes safari guests think that a Cape Buffalo is just another type of cow. Far from it. These stocky herd animals can turn from fairly docile bovines into very dangerous opponents within seconds.

When threatened a herd will form a “battle array” with the large males up front, the younger males on the sides and the females and calves behind. In that formation they can even stand down a pride of Lions. For Humans on foot they can be one of the most dangerous encounters in the bush. There position as one of the Big Five is therefore fully justified.

This picture shows the Thanda Buffalo herd leaving a waterholes.

Picture by Christian Sperka – Specialist Photography Guide and Resident Wildlife Photographer – Thanda Private Game Reserve

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2014-10-05

Operation Cheetah

Today we changed the radio collar on our Cheetah mum so that the Wildlife Team can continue to monitor her progress – I was allowed to be hands – on for a moment – Thanks to Warren for taking the picture 🙂

And this is a collage of the operation – before – during – after

2014-09-262014-09-26

Unpublished

While browsing through some of my older images today I found this Leopard picture I took many years ago. It was never published. So here it is now.

Enjoy your weekend 🙂

2014-09-252014-09-24

Images only!

I recently bought a new iPhone 5s – I was missing it 🙂 – and I also started to post images on Instagram.

If you use a smartphone and you like to see more of my images you can find me under christiansperkaphotography on Instagram.

Most of the images I post on Instagram will be different from the ones on my Blog, Facebook and Google+ and usually come with very little text :-).

Enjoy them!

PS: If you just want to look at the posted Instagram picture from time to time you can go to http://instagram.com/christiansperkaphotography on your computer.

PPS: All Instagram posts will also be shared on Twitter, Tumblr and Flickr – just in case you would like to follow me there!

2014-09-242014-09-24

Ignore the car!

Lions normally ignore game drive vehicles, especially when the encounter is on their terms. The Thanda dominant male was passing within touching distance of the vehicle, undisturbed by the humans within the car.

It was not necessary to tell any of the Thanda guests to sit very still and be quiet during this sighting, that was done quite naturally 🙂

What a morning!