Leopard

Leopard with Cubs; Serengeti National Park

A mother leopard with kittens lays under a palm tree and next to a creek.

Just One More Step . . .

No, I wasn’t on foot in front of this mother leopard with cubs.  I was safely shooting from a safari vehicle.  This mother leopard was at the edge of a stream that was shaded and protected by trees and other vegetation.  We came back a day or two later to find her gone and that palm tree lying where she had been.  I don’t know what happened, but hope she and her young got away safely.

African Lion

African Lion, Serengeti National Park

This is a photo showing the battle scars of being the leader of a pride.

“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.

Mountain Lion/Puma

Puma, Torres del Paine National Park

This is a photo of a female puma in a cave in Chile's Torres del Paine National Park.

Female Puma at Cave

I had been wanting to photograph mountain lions for a while, so in 2016 I went to Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park with two friends.  This female became our most photographed subject.  She was totally oblivious to us.

She was known as “Sister.”  She had a female litter-mate who had no tail.  Her litter mate was called, as you might guess, “Tail-less.”  Tail-less became pretty well-known for a while.  I guess Sister got her name because of her relationship with Tail-less.  Anyway, by the time we were there in 2016 Tail-less had disappeared.

Bald Eagle

Flashback to Homer, Alaska, and the Bald Eagles

This is a photo of three bald eagles on a limb.

Three Eagles Out On A Limb

Time flies!  It was 2009 when I went to Homer, Alaska, to photograph bald eagles with three friends from the Marin Camera Club, Dan Van Winkle, Kevin Westerlund and Gene Morita.  Gene’s friend, John Isaac, joined us there.  It was the last year Jean Keene would feed the bald eagles at her home on Kachemak Bay because she passed away that year.

Photographers from all over the world came to her place to photograph the eagles.