Weekly Photo Challenge: Object
Once again, I thought I’d try to show a little different take on the subject of the Challenge. In this photo there is little doubt where the focal point of the story is……the Cheetah of course! But of equal interest is the fact that it is sitting on our safari vehicle observing us like we were in a miniature zoo. We all knew that it was a special moment by the fact that our wonderful guide ( who had never had this happen before) kept lowly muttering ” there’s a cheetah on my truck…..there’s a cheetah on MY truck”
Who is looking at who??
So the truck is also part of the object….but I also think that the fact that the cheetah was thinking WE were the object is interesting….but she didn’t have a camera.
East Africa Safari – episode 3 – “H” day….hyenas, hunting and hippos
The day after the lion incident we again left our beautiful bungalow at the Kyambura game lodge where we were staying and got an early start in the Queen Elizabeth park.
Home above the Rift valley
We checked where the lions were the night before but no one was home. We did however, notice many kob getting agitated and running from something. Looking closer, we spotted numerous Hyena at the edges of the kob herd. We watched for quite a while as the hyena kept running with the herd in an attempt to wear down some of the younger, weaker animals. This first photo shows one of the hyena closing in on the herd.
Morning Danger closing in….
We saw many other animals that morning but we also had our first extended encounter with a lion. As we were driving we spotted a single lion sitting up in a field at the top of a hill. Within a minute or two we saw another lion in the same place but the original cat started toward the road we were on. We positioned ourselves to get a good view as she passed by and then retired in the shadows of a nearby thicket.
Lion crossing….
As we were exiting the park from the morning drive, we also ran across two herds of elephants so Katherine was once again very happy.
Elephants everywhere we looked
In the afternoon we took a cruise on the Kazinga channel where there were Hippopotamus, Cape Buffalo, Elephants, and innumerable species of african birds. It was a great afternoon with new sights around every turn on the channel.
Submerged Hippo
East Africa Safari – Episode 2 – an Elephant and an incident
On our third day in Uganda, we proceeded to Queen Elizabeth National Park to continue our safari. We entered the park in the late afternoon and began to see many of the iconic animals of the African plains. Mike and Katherine (our friends, neighbors and traveling companions) had never seen many of these animals in the wild so it was wonderful to share their introduction to the safari experience.
The Kob antelope – a very beautiful but common sight
In particular, Katherine has a special affection for elephants so it was wonderful to be able to share her reaction to seeing our first elephant of the trip. As African elephant sightings go, this one was not noteworthy – it was a single male and quite distant from the road we were on. That being said, Katherine was ecstatic and her enthusiasm excited us all. I thought I’d share a photo of that first elephant here so that maybe you can imagine seeing this majestic animal walking free for the first time.
A wonderful first sighting
We continued through the park enjoying the lovely afternoon/evening until we came upon a few safari vehicles stopped by the side of the road. We were told that there was a pride of lions about 100 yards off the road relaxing in the high grass. We could actually see a tail of one of the lions as it wagged above the grass. After waiting a while for the lions to stir, we continued on our way but returned a short while later to see if the lions would start their evening prowls. We watched patiently with numerous other safari vehicles for over an hour as the sun started going down but there was no movement. Then, all of a sudden, one of the vehicles decided to drive off the road and proceed directly at the lions who, of course, were roused from their sleep. To our astonishment, the vehicle then began to actually chase the lions around, rampaging through the grass at about 20 mph and circling to pursue the lions as they tried to avoid being run over.
Lion uses a termite mound for cover while growling at the harassing vehicle
After about 5 minutes the vehicle finally returned to the road and rejoined the other observers. As I said, we (and our guide) were incredulous at this behavior and we began to discuss what we could do to try and prevent this type of issue for the future. We finally decided to talk to the Uganda Wildlife Authority at one of the park entrances. They were very interested in the report (and my photos of the event) and they took down my contact information. A few days later I received a very nice email from the senior UWA officer informing us that the driver had been fined and that the incident would be used to deter other guides from harassing the animals. We were extremely impressed that the park officials had taken quick action and that they had taken the trouble to let us know that they took this situation seriously.
As dusk fell, we continued to hope to get a glimpse of the pride beginning their evening hunt but they may have been spooked by the encounter and never appeared. We were a little disappointed but we were treated to this scene as we departed – not a bad way to end a nice day……
Sunset worthy of Queen Elizabeth
Weekly Photo Challenge: Juxtaposition
I have lots of brand new photos to choose from so I did a quick scan and found a couple that fit the challenge. Both of these photos feature the pairings of a large animal with a small one – in both of these cases a bird. The first is obviously a Zebra but with a starling visitor on his back. These starlings are almost irridescent blue/black with bright yellow eyes – presenting a contrast even with the most contrasting of animals – the Zebra.
Contrasting sizes and Colors
The second photo positions one of the smallest and quickest birds in Africa, the Pied Kingfisher with one of the largest and slowest mammals on the planet, the African Elephant. I was focused on the Kingfisher and was happy that I was able to also capture the Elephant as part of the background for the shot…..
The Large and the Small of it…..
The first photo was taken in the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania and the second was taken from a boat in the Kazinga Channel in Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda
East Africa Safari – episode 1- Chimpanzees
Hi everyone. Sorry for the delay in this post but I’m still recovering from our very busy trip to Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania. I thought it might be the easiest to take this trip in sequence to try to convey the feel of the whole trip. I’ve already given you a taste with last week’s photo challenge but lets go back to the beginning. We flew from San Diego to London on the 28th of December and spent a lovely couple of days in London (despite the weather) getting over some jet lag. On 2 January we flew direct from London to Entebbe, Uganda arriving late at night. We got up for an early breakfast on the 3rd and reunited with our very good friends and neighbors, Katherine and Mike (who had taken an earlier flight to Uganda) to proceed to our first safari destination, the Kibale National Park – home of Chimpanzees! We boarded our 6:00AM flight to Kasese to begin our adventure. We were met by our guide and new friend Isaac who would show us around both Uganda and Rwanda for the week. Isaac turned out to be an incredible source of information on all aspects of the countries and places we would visit – as well as a great guide for our wildlife “game drives”. After a few hours driving (on some pretty rough roads) we arrived in Kibale and stretched our legs with a nice walk around one of the many of the volcanic crater lakes in the area. We had chosen to stay at the Primates Lodge right at the edge of the park to be close to the wildlife and to allow a very early start to our day with the Chimpanzees. It is a lovely luxury tent based lodge and we enjoyed the sights of monkeys in the trees and the many exotic sounds of the jungle at night. After an early breakfast (a theme for the entire trip) we met our guide from the Uganda Wildlife Authority at 6:00AM. I should explain that there are two ways to see the Chimpanzees at Kibale – a Chimpanzee trek or the Chimpanzee habituation experience. If you go on the first, you are limited to an hour with the Chimps while the second lets you spend the entire day with the Chimps in a controlled effort to allow them to become used to seeing human beings in their environment. We opted for the full day as we wanted to see how they spent their time. We walked into the forest and started to listen for the chimps distinctive calls – which started coming right on schedule to let us know where they were. We took a relatively short hike and then saw maybe 20-30 chimps in the top of a nearby, very tall, tree. I had barely gotten my camera ready when they started to move. In this case, they moved very quickly both in the trees and on the ground. We followed them through various trails in the jungle only catching an occasional glimpse of a chimp behind. We were all wondering if this was going to be the model for the day — the pace they set was exhausting! Luckily, they finally started climbing a nearby tree and began feeding on the fruit above us. As I started to try to take some distant photos of the chimps overhead, an amazing thing happened – we looked down the path that we had just walked down and there was a whole family of chimpanzees walking towards us – mothers, fathers, babies, the whole family. This procession continued for a long time as dozens of chimps walked up to us and then joined their friends in the trees above. It was a fabulous experience and gave us a chance to watch the behavior of all members of the family.
All in the Family
After having the Chimps all to ourselves for a couple of hours, other larger groups of people started to appear for their hour with the chimps. We allowed them to take the lead as we followed the chimps as they only had limited time to see them. This didn’t turn out to be a hardship for anyone as we were all soon surrounded by chimps from every direction. It seems anywhere we looked, there were chimps sitting, eating, or moving around – all within a few yards of us intruders.
Surrounded by Friends
After a short while the hour trekkers left and we had the chimps to ourselves again. They seemed more relaxed with less people around and our guide took the opportunity to introduce us to a “very special chimp” who was extremely comfortable with us. He sat with us and then rolled over on his back with legs in the air to indicate his comfort level. We spent a nice time with him until the chimps started moving again.
Welcome to my world
This time they moved toward the main road and the entrance to the park. They approached the road cautiously and sat listening for traffic before coming out onto the side of the road. Then we were all astounded when they each, in turn, looked both ways before crossing the road! This act alone convinced us that these close relatives of ours were smarter than many of their human descendants.
Crossing “our” world – with caution
After crossing the road, our guide told us that this was unusual as they had entered another family’s domain. He thought they were using us as a “buffer” with this resident group. The chimps appeared to be settling down again, so we joined them, had a little lunch, and took a quick nap surrounded by sleeping chimps in all directions – priceless!
Thanks for your hospitality!!
After nap time, we followed our friends back across the road (after looking both ways) and followed them through some dense forest again. The afternoon hour trekkers came and went and we had some more alone time with the group. We finally all decided that we were exhausted after spending a wonderful ten hours with the Chimps and decided to return to our lodge for a rest, dinner, and some rumination about the marvelous things that we had witnessed during the day. We felt closer than ever to our “relatives” – and incredibly fortunate to have shared a day with them at “their place”.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Family
Hi Everyone! We’re still on our journey home from Africa with a one night stopover in London. We have connectivity for the first time in in a long while so I thought I’d offer a quick post. We spent the last two weeks with MANY different kinds of animal families and I promise I’ll share them all here. For this post I thought I’d start with the first family of animals we saw in Uganda. As we were about ready to enter the Kibale National Park to spend a day with the Chimpanzees, we were greeted by a large troop of Olive Baboons. There were many youngsters present, riding on their mothers back but I thought this photo of a feeding session captured the idea of a Baboon family well – mom, pop, and junior all sharing a moment in the afternoon.
Togetherness – Baboon style
I’ll have so many photos and stories of our trip to share that I hope you don’t get bored. We saw and learned so much in our time in Uganda, Rwanda, and Tanzania that it is overwhelming – I hope some of my photos can begin to pass that along to all of you. Much more after we get home tomorrow.
Stopover in Rainy London…
Happy New Year to everyone! We’re here in Jolly old London town and “enjoying” the rain! We’ve seen a couple of good shows (“Once” is a great musical) and then off to Uganda tomorrow morning. Thought I’d just share a typical scene from the last few days……
Weather fit for ….. a Duck?
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