wildlife – Page 138 – Christian Sperka Photography

2014-03-05

New cubs!

It was the first time I saw the new Lion cubs of the oldest Thanda South Pride female. The mum of the two youngsters is quite shy and likes thick bush. Bheki and I were on our way to take some pictures on the Thanda Mduna Royal Reserve. As we approached the fence line to this new part of Thanda we spotted the female with her two new cubs and the their two older brothers.

I got a few shots of some of the family members before they disappeared into a drainage line. This is my favorite images from this fast photo shoot 🙂

2014-03-04

BIRDS – Village Weavers mating

Since I have posted the image of a strangely colored bird a few days ago – now identified as a Village Weaver – a few of you have asked me about how do Village Weavers normally look like.

So here is an image of a Village Weaver pair mating in front of their nest.

2014-03-02

HELP! – A questions for the birders among you.

Bheki – my tracker on Thanda – is an excellent birding guide. And he usually is able to identify any bird for our guest or for me :-).

But this one puzzles us both. I shot this image in July 2011. As I am currently reviewing all my images – many thousands 😦 – I came across this one and wanted to get an ID.

Does anyone have an idea what this is (it looks like a Weaver or Canary with some of the colors of a Barbet).

Thanks for the help!

2014-03-01

Bush Disco?

This is a story from the Thanda Wildlife department I just posted on Thanda’s blog. I am sure you, the reader’s of my blog, will enjoy it as well!

Far from it – Enjoy this story from the Thanda Wildlife department 🙂

Relocating Lions

Every now and again we have to say goodbye to some of our animals on Thanda. Not because we want to, but because we have to in order to manage the reserve properly.

Currently we have two beautiful, two and half-year old male Lions. They have decided to join up with their mom and her two new cubs. In order to prevent inbreeding and fighting with the much bigger older males, we will have to move them to a new home. A game reserve nearby, whose male lion was caught in a snare, is looking for a replacement. A good match!

Well that was the easy part… Unfortunately you don’t just walk up to a lion and ask him to please climb into the vehicle for a ride to his new home. So we bought 2 HUGE speakers and an amplifier which we will take out into the bush and use it to play the sound of a distressed animal from a recording, which should attract these two elusive boys.

We will have bait tied to a tree to make it irresistible for them to stick around. This way the vet can dart them once they start eating.

Sounds like fun, right? Well attempt number one brought us a Hyena after playing “distress sounds” for three hours and we eventually decided to pack up for the day. So this is what we’re going to do for many nights so to catch these lions for their big move. Wish us luck!

Mariana Venter – Thanda Wildlife Operations

The image above on the left shows John and Mariana from Thanda Wildlife Operations “playing to the Lions”. The image above on the right shows one of two young males.

The image below shows mum and her two boys – They are also hard to catch on camera as they are quite shy 🙂

2014-02-27

New Thanda e-brochure

We have created a new Thanda e-brochure. It contains a lot of images and interesting information on 40 pages. All the wildlife images are mine 🙂

You can either view the brochure as a flipping book online at
http://www.edvc.com/Thanda/e-brochure/Thanda.html

or download it as a zip file to your computer at
http://thandablog.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/thanda-e-brochure.zip

or view the brochure as a pdf at
http://thandablog.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/thanda-e-brochure.pdf

Let me know what you think!

PS: The title page image is one of my favorite Lioness images. She was “bird-watching” when I took the shot 🙂

2014-02-26

Looking for mum …

This young White Rhino female was looking for her mum when this picture was taken a few day ago. She was quite nervous being on her own.

The mother had separated herself as she gave birth to a new calf (no pictures yet 🙂 ).

Today, all three – mother, daughter and the new baby – were seen together.

Another great Thanda sighting!

2014-02-24

Two youngsters – calf and chick!

This was a very cute Thanda sighting. The little Buffalo calf was “hosting” a Red-billed Oxpecker chick. They were posing for this portrait for quite a while.

Have a good week!

PS: The Oxpecker chick is the same size as its parents, but it has a black bill and looks more fluffy 🙂

2014-02-22

With all senses!

If you shut your eyes and hold your ears closed you can experience a Lion’s roar through the stomach 🙂

When – at sunrise this morning – Thanda’s dominant male started roaring only a few meters from our game drive vehicle all conversation stopped and everyone on the vehicle held their breath until the call was completed. This was not a beginner’s roar, but the territorial call of a dominant male. One does not have to hear it, one can feel it.

I have included a small sound bite of the roar – click on either of the images to hear the Lion. But it is only a poor representation of the amazing feeling when experiencing such a Lion’s roar with all ones senses.

What a morning!

2014-02-20

Difference in size!

This picture shows an interesting comparison between an adult male and an adult female African Elephant. Size is the most significant visual sign of Elephants’ sexual dimorphism.

On the left is one of Thanda oldest and largest bulls (he his almost 50 years old) and on the right is Thanda’s oldest and largest female (she is around 40 years old). The female, a tusk-less African Elephant, is the matriarch of Thanda’s herd of Elephant.

2014-02-18

Black & White

I do not often create black & white versions of my pictures. But when I came across this image of a young Lioness lounging in a tree I thought this would look good in b&w. And I like it!

The young lady surprised many Thanda guests when she presented herself just outside the Thanda Tented Camp during check-out time. A great good-bye for our guests.