Today is Wold Lion Day – a day to celebrate one of my favorite cats!
#LetLionsLive #worldlionday
WorldLionDay 2017
Zulu Kids
Today I came across this picture I took at one of the local schools when I visited there with Thanda Safari guests.
These youngsters, as most Zulu children and also most adults, love to pose for a camera!
I am working on a series of blogs about the Zulu community, Zulu culture and Zulu people. Stay tuned …
Enjoy your week!
The Montagues and Capulets
As in Romeo and Juliet this Lioness has no way to get united with her Romeo. As one can see in the video the young female is in esterous and is keen to mate, but the fences between two game reserve prevent the males from getting to here (the roars in the background are from the males on the neighboring reserve).
The lady is obviously not interested in the perfectly good dominant male on her side of the reserve. The grass seems always greener on the other side of the fence.
Enjoy the video and your week!
Video by Christian Sperka, Resident Wildlife Photographer Thanda Safari
Amazing Camouflage …
Today I had a great sighting of a Vine Snake at Pakamisa Private Game Reserve. This small specimen was quite relaxed and made for an excellent photo model :-).
Pictures 1/2/3 – taken with a Canon 1D Mark IV and a 28-300mm lens
Pictures 4/5 – taken with an iPhone 7Plus
Chacma Baboons (SG19)
Fun to watch, no fun to have around the house: Chacma Baboons!
I just uploaded 45 of my Chacma Baboon images – taken between 2005 and 2017 – to www.sperka.biz/sg19.
More species gallery available online at http://www.sperka.biz/sg.
The galleries for Aardvark, Aardwolf and Blesbok are also new.
May and June
In the last weeks I did not have a lot of time to blog. But over the last few days I worked on a lot of images (sorting/filing/deleting/editing a few thousand) and I thought you might like to see some of my favorite shots from May and June 2017 which I took at Thanda Safari.
The Big Five, Cheetah, Hyena and more …
Enjoy them!
Pictures information for the photographers among you:
- 10 June – Small Elephant – Canon 1D Mark IV with 28-300L at 300mm
- 11 May – Large Elephant – Canon 1D Mark IV with 28-300L at 85mm (DoF-PP)
- 30 May – Small Lion – Canon 1D Mark IV with 28-300L at 85mm
- 28 May – Me (Mirror) and Hyena – iPhone 7 Plus
- 9 June – Vulture – Canon 1D Mark IV with 28-300L at 270mm
- 30 May – Pride of Lions – Canon 1D Mark IV with 28-300L at 105mm
- 2 June – Cheetah – Canon 1D Mark IV with 28-300L at 250mm (DoF-PP)
- 5 June – Bark Spider – iPhone 7 Plus
- 28 May – Hyena on Kill – Canon 1D Mark IV with 28-300L at 90mm (DoF-PP)
- 28 May – Giraffes fighting – Canon 1D Mark IV with 28-300L at 235mm
- 12 May – Leopard with Nyala kill – Canon 1D Mark IV with 28-300L at 300mm
- 20 May – White Rhino with new-born calf – Canon 1D Mark IV with 28-300L at 105mm
- 8 June – Cape Buffalo bull – iPhone 7 Plus (2x magnification)
- 28 May Me with my Canon 1D Mark IV and the Canon 28-300L lens sitting in the Green Mamba 1 – iPhone 7 Plus
Note: DoF-PP = depth of field change in post processing
A Look
I came across this shot as I was filing pictures this afternoon. ‘Deer in the headlight look’ comes to mind 🙂
iPhone Photography
In the last few weeks I was driving a lot with journalists, photographers and many Thanda Safari guests. I had only limited time and opportunities to use my Canon DSLR. But I used my iPhone 7+ quite a bit. Here are some of my favorite iPhone shots 🙂
Five Years in the Wild
Today, five years ago, I arrived at Thanda, my home in the African bush. What an amazing five years, meeting new friends and people from all over the world, taking thousands of wildlife images and visiting many new places.
I am looking forward to many more years living and working at this amazing place 😊
The World and a Map
During my last visit to the Star-For-Life Mmemezi high school in rural Zululand with an Austrian journalist we had a chat with the 12th grade students about the world. We talked about Austria and Australia and about Switzerland and Sweden and also about German. We realized that they were very interested to know about the world out there. So I made a decision. I ordered a large laminated world map (2.65m x 1.55m / 8.5″ x 5″) and I will deliver it to the school for 12th grade classroom. The journalist kindly contributed funds and I promised her that I will tell them a bit more about her beautiful country when I deliver the map.
I am looking forward to my next visit!
This is a picture of the school which I took with my drone 🙂 Everyone at the school loved the ‘small helicopter’ and the pictures it took!
Read more about Star-For-Life – which was founded by Thanda Safari owners Dan and Christin Olofsson – at https://starforlife.org/
Christian Sperka Photography | Custom Luxury Tours 