This site is dedicated to wildlife and landscape photography.
This site is dedicated to wildlife and landscape photography.
When I saw this wading bird in Serengeti National Park I thought at first it was a great blue heron. But then I quickly noticed it was darker and more blue than the bird I know fairly well. This bird doesn’t have a black head in spite of its name, and the great blue heron does have a black top to its head. Anyway, they’re both handsome birds.
Bobcat with Eye Injury
This is a much tighter crop than I would normally do, but I wanted to show you what appears to be a serious injury to this bobcat’s left eye. There is a black line that runs at a 45 degree angle in the eyeball. It may be blind in that eye. I’ve also seen two different badgers at Point Reyes with what seemed to have been serious eye injuries. One seemed to have no visible pupil in one eye and the other seemed to have no visible pupil in either eye. I assume the latter was totally blind. It had two cubs with it and it looked to be in good health.
I don’t know how these things happen, but one possibility is that they get poked in the eye by little bits of vegetation like broken branches or twigs.
Here are just a few of the 2,200 photos I took of thousands of wildebeests crossing the Mara River one morning in late September of 2018.
Wildebeests Stampeding Down the South Bank of the Mara River
Our guide, John, got us to the Mara River early in the morning and told us that there was no guarantee we would see any of the thousands of wildebeests we were watching actually cross the river into Kenya. We crossed our fingers. Many people wait for days without witnessing a crossing.
Some of the Thousands of Wildebeests that Crossed the Mara River
My two safari mates and I were standing and looking out the top of our Land Rover taking photos of the many wildebeests around us when John shouted “get down, get down”! He had spotted one or two individuals start to move down the steep bank of the river and he knew in a few seconds thousands of wildebeests would follow them and stampede to and across the river. John raced to a spot near the river’s edge where we could witness the crossing. In all my years of photographing wildlife this was the first time the word “pandemonium” came to mind, but that’s what it was. It was truly a moving experience. Thousands of wildebeests and a few zebras raced by for over 30 minutes.
A bottleneck occurred because animals were arriving at the far side of the river faster than they could climb the steep bank.
In addition to the still photos I shot many videos of the crossing. One shows animals falling down the bank either because they lost their footing in their steep climbs or they were forced off edges by too many animals in too little space. Some fell on others below. I had heard of animals breaking legs in these crossings, but all the ones we were watching made it across without any obvious injuries. There were no crocodiles where they crossed. John told us later that the water was too shallow there. Crocodiles prefer to grab their prey and drown them and this area was too shallow for that. I don’t know if the wildebeests crossed here for that reason.
After the dust settled, we drove upriver a ways and saw two wildebeests wedged between rocks in a rocky section of the river trying to free themselves. As we watched, it became clear they were never going to get free. None of their legs could touch bottom. There was a large crocodile watching them and just biding its time.
Two Cheetahs Rest
These two cheetahs were resting under a tree along the border with Kenya. It’s often hot in Tanzania and a good place to look for cheetahs and lions is under trees. For a larger version of this image, go to my portfolio.
A cheetah sits on a termite mound.
We watched this cheetah for a while. At first, I assumed it was scanning for prey. However, it started calling for some reason. It may have been calling for kittens. I’ll never know. All I know is it finally left the termite mound and wandered away.
For a larger view of the photo click on my portfolio.
A lion cub rests near its mother, Serengeti National Park, Tanzania.
We saw a lot of lions in Serengeti National park. This cub was in Northern Serengeti. Speaking of Serengeti, it’s a very big park. It’s larger than Yellowstone National Park. In fact, I looked up the acreage of both parks before the trip and saw that if I added two Yosemite National Parks to Yellowstone I’d get one Serengeti National Park.
This cub was with several other cubs and their mothers near a small creek. It has a few flies on it which look like tsetse flies to me. Two are on the lower lid of its left eye. When tsetse flies bite, you know it. Unlike a mosquito, a tsetse fly’s mouth has tiny serrations that saw their way to your blood. They also have hard bodies. Most of the ones I smacked just flew away.
A herd of elephants passes in Tarangire National Park.
When I booked a trip to Tanzania last summer I already knew something about Serengeti National Park, but there was another park on the itinerary that I had never heard of. That park is Tarangire National Park. It is the third largest park in Tanzania. It is known mostly for its elephants and baobab trees and it has both in abundance. Here is a photo from my first day in the park. The photo was taken at dusk near the Tarangire River. This is just a small group of elephants out of a herd of somewhere between fifty and one hundred animals.
For a larger version of this photo, click on my portfolio.
