We came across this leopard on our first game drive last week. She had been resting in a fallen tree all afternoon before getting up to go on a night hunt. More on this leopard, her one-year old cub, and her cub’s pet pangolin coming up.
Nikon D700 with Nikkor 70-200mm lens (at 75mm) ISO 1600, f/2.8 at 1/200th of a second

Got back from my honeymoon tonight and just started to download all the pictures. It’ll be a while before I have everything organized and processed but here’s one that I liked from the Botswana portion of the trip. It was early in the morning so I wasn’t working with much light. Eight spotted hyenas were romping through a wetland area of the Linyanti Concession in the northern part of the country. The night before, they had stolen an impala kill from a leopard and the hyena on the right was playing keep away with the horns. Many more pics from Botswana to come, including a first for me — a pangolin. Also, many pics from Greece on the way.
Nikon D800 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 400mm) ISO 1600, f/4 at 1/100th of a second

As soon as the sun starts to rise on the Makgadikgadi Pan in Botswana, meerkats start to come out of their burrows. They spend quite a bit of time just hanging around, warming up, and play fighting. Eventually they head out for the day to forage for scorpions and other small prey. I caught these two in that mid morning routine of play fighting.
Nikon D300 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 200mm) ISO 400, f/8 at 1/1000th of a second

Just a simple close up of a male lion, but I like that you can see the detail of his battle-scarred face. He was filling up at a water hole in Botswana’s Central Kalahari Game Reserve.
Nikon D300 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 400mm) ISO 400, f/6.3 at 1/320th of a second

First off, sorry for no posts last week. We just got our power back yesterday after Sandy dumped five feet of water into the lobby of our apartment building. It’s good to be back online. For today, just a simple portrait of a black-backed jackal. I was on the ground for this one, shooting at eye level, when the curious jackal approached to within twelve or so feet. The shallow depth of field and backlit lighting provided by the setting sun created a nice soft feel to the image.

This male lion had a belly full of oryx when he arrived at the water hole to quench his thirst. The light was pretty nice that morning and the water hole was so still, providing a mirror-like reflection.

Today I found out that I won a photography competition for an image that I took while on safari in Botswana last year. I’m happy to say that the grand prize is a trip back to Botswana. In addition to the grand prize, I also had the top photo in five of the competition’s nine categories (see the link here for a quick write up and the winning shots). The photo above is a Cape buffalo and it has absolutely nothing to do with the contest, other than it’s also from Botswana. I have previously posted all the winning images so didn’t want to post again.

I saw quite a few of these black-backed jackals in the Central Kalahari Desert of Botswana. One of the nice things about that trip was that I was able to get out of the safari vehicle and onto the ground for more intimate, eye-level shots. I caught this guy, early in the morning, just as he was getting up from a long nap in the dry grass.

This looked like a shift change, as the one lion gave way to the other as soon as he approached the water hole. They had just spent the last few hours feasting on an oryx kill and were both bloated and thirsty. The water hole was within sight of our camp in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve of Botswana.