Bighorn Sheep

Bighorn Ram, Yellowstone National Park

This is a photo of a bighorn sheep ram on the McMinn Bench at Mount Everts, Yellowstone National Park.

I haven’t been to Yellowstone for several years and planned to go this year until the big flood occurred.  One reason I wanted to go was to get more photos of bighorn sheep.  I don’t have many decent photos of them on my website.  The other day I decided to look through the photos I do have to see if I could find any that I thought were worth putting on my site.  After looking around, I decided to add the photo above and a couple of others.  It was shot in November of 2005 with an 8MP Canon 20D.

African Lion

Male Lion, Porini Lion Camp, Kenya

This is a portrait photo of a male lion in Kenya.

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.

African Lion

Male Lion, Kenya

This is a photo of an African lion walking into the rising sun.

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?

Serval

Serval, Olare Motorogi Conservancy, Kenya

This is a photo of a serval.

When I arrived at Gamewatchers Safaris’ Porini Lion Camp, the first cat I expected to see was, well, a lion, and hopefully a whole pride of lions.  As it turned out, the first cat or cats I saw were three cheetah brothers and, a few minutes later, this serval cat who was walking around near us and the cheetahs.  The serval is a  beautiful little cat about the size of our bobcats here in North America.   I don’t know how it survives with all the bigger predators, but it does.  Maybe the big cats understand that it mainly feeds on rodents and insects and thus isn’t competing with them for food.

Leopard

Leopard, Ol Kinyei, Kenya

This is a photo of a leopard that stops in a flowery open area as the sun sets.

Like most nature photographers, my favorite times to photograph nature are those two hours or so centered on sunrise and sunset.  If there are flowers to add color to the scene, so much the better.  So, I was happy when this female leopard stopped in this setting for a moment.

It was 6:33pm, one minute after sunset, when I took this photo.

Hyena

Portrait of a Spotted Hyena at Sunrise in Kenya

This is a close portrait photo of a spotted hyena in Kenya.

While I went to Kenya last month mainly to photograph the big cats, there were times when I shot other subjects.  That was the case with this spotted hyena.  I don’t think many people think of hyenas as great subjects to  photograph, but this one had the benefit of that golden hour of sunlight like the male lion I posted a week ago.   This hyena was photographed at 6:50 a.m. local time.  Sunrise was at about 6:30 a.m. then, as I recall.

Lion

A Male Lion at Sunrise, Olare Motorogi Conservancy, Kenya

This is a photo of a male lion as he stops and looks in the direction of the rising sun.

This golden light is why we nature photographers try to be out there before the sun rises.  When I was at Gamewatchers’ Porini Lion Camp (Porini means “in the wild” in Swahili) in Kenya in early June we were awakened by the Swahili greeting “jambo” (“hello”) at 5:30 a.m.  We were then given a tray with a pitcher of coffee or tea and 5 or 6 cookies which would get us going.  We’d leave camp at 6:15 a.m. sharp and be looking for wildlife as we drove away.  At around 8:00 a.m. we’d stop for a nice hot bush breakfast.  This male lion was photographed at 7:05 a.m.