This site is dedicated to wildlife and landscape photography.
This site is dedicated to wildlife and landscape photography.
This is one of two male lions that were the leaders of a pride that I saw every one of the four days I was at Porini Lion Camp. They were easy to find, at least when you have Nelson Keiwua and John Tompoi as your guide and spotter. Canon R5 and EF-17-40L lens. Just kidding. RF-100-500L lens at 500mm.
I photographed this male lion at sunrise in the Olare Motorogi Conservancy. I just read that they weigh up to about 570 pounds. Wow. This guy just exudes power. I’m glad they never jump into safari vehicles that stop for photos just 20 yards away. They never do, right?
A lioness carries her cub to a new den in the Ol Kinyei Conservancy, Kenya. Mother lions normally keep their new cubs away from the pride for the first six to eight weeks of life and move them fairly frequently during that period to minimize the ability of other wildlife to smell where they are.
To finish the story I started a week or so ago, after those great four days with Gamewatchers Safaris in the Ol Kinyei Conservancy just north of the Maasai Mara Reserve, I spent the next four days at Gamewatchers’ Porini Lion Camp in the Olare Motorogi Conservancy. As the name implies, there are a lot of lions in the conservancy where Gamewatchers’ Porini Lion Camp is located. They were easy to find and photograph. I also saw and photographed leopards on two of the four days and saw and photographed cheetahs every day. Like during my previous four days in the Ol Kinyei Conservancy, I had an excellent guide in Nelson Keiwua. With us every day was Nelson’s spotter, John Tompoi. I think I’m pretty good at spotting wildlife, but Nelson and John are in another league.
It was hard deciding on a photo here, but I finally decided on this cheetah mom who had three cubs. I spent a fair amount of time photographing her and, especially, her three rambunctious cubs. I already want to go back.
Serenity.
This handsome male lion is in his prime. I have read that as he ages his nose will become black, he will develop jowls and he will have noticeable scars on his face. I’m guessing he’s about 5 or 6 years old.
“Let’s Be Careful Out There.”
For those of you old enough to remember the TV show “Hill Street Blues,” Sgt. Esterhaus used to end his briefings with the caution “let’s be careful out there.” The streets can be dangerous. So can the plains of the Serengeti as this male African lion can attest. In addition to that nasty wound under his eye and split upper lip, he’s missing his upper left fang and his lower one is broken. Nevertheless, he is still the leader of a pride.
Here are some of my favorite photos that I blogged about in 2019.
A bull tule elk feeds at sunset inside the elk enclosure at Point Reyes National Seashore.
At Point Reyes National Seashore 400-500 elk are kept locked up behind an 8-foot tall woven-wire fence to keep them away from the ranchers who live on and control 28,000 acres of park land and raise 6,000 dairy cows, beef cattle and sheep. NPS bought their ranches decades ago, but never removed them. The 28,000 acres are managed as the ranchers want, not as lands in a national park are supposed to be managed. I know of no other national park where wildlife is locked up like in a zoo for the visitors to see.
A night view of Angel Island, Alcatraz and San Francisco.
Mountains and fog at dawn in Torres del Paine National Park
A mother guanaco and her chulengo appear before sunrise in Torres del Paine National Park.
A red fox mom returns to her den with an arctic hare to feed her kits in Yellowstone National Park.
Three lionesses are on the hunt in Serengeti National Park.
A bald eagle perches on a limb in Alaska.
A male elephant walks near a wetland in Tarangire National Park, Tanzania.
An African lioness surveys her domain in Serengeti National Park.
A coyote stops just before sunset as it travels across a ranch pasture in Point Reyes National Seashore.
The National Park Service purchased the ranches several decades ago, but it has never made the ranchers leave.
One bald eagle bites another at Homer, Alaska.
A coyote walks across a ranch pasture full of non-native European grasses in Point Reyes Seashore.
The National Park Service prioritizes private ranching over wildlife in Point Reyes National Seashore. This is the worst example of privatizing a national park that I am aware of. It involves 28,000 acres of national park land. If anyone knows of a worse example, please let me know.
