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?
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.
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.
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.
I’ve just returned from a fantastic 8-day photo safari on lands just outside the famed Maasai Mara Reserve in Kenya. I photographed this leopard along a tree-lined stream in the Ol Kinyea Conservancy. Ol Kinyea is one of 16 conservancies adjacent to the north border of the Reserve. The conservancies are the result of agreements between Masai landowners and safari companies and others interested in increasing wildlife habitat by removing agricultural use of the lands and managing them to benefit wildlife, instead of livestock and crops. The landowners are paid for this conversion of their lands back to nature, plus the Masai make up almost 100% of the people who run the camps from the camp manager down through the guides and all the other staff.
I booked my safari with Gamewatchers Safaris which is one of the pioneers of the conservancy idea. I stayed in what they call their Porini Mara Camp in the Ol Kinyea Conservancy for the first four days. My guide was George Letoluo. George was an excellent guide. He got me to the spot where I took this photo like he knew the leopard would stop and pose at this fallen tree.
I went to Kenya primarily to photograph the three big cats and there wasn’t a day George didn’t get me at least two of the three big cats. One of the plusses about the conservancy lands is that camp guests are few compared to the crowded national parks and staying on roads is not required like it is in Serengeti National Park and the Maasai Mara Reserve. I was in Serengeti in 2018 and saw only about 10% of the cats that I saw on this trip.
After my four days at the Porini Mara Camp, I went to Gamewatchers Lion Camp in the Olare Motorogi Conservancy for four more incredible days. They don’t call it Lion Camp without reason. But that’s a story for another day. All told, I shot 20,000 photos. At 50MB per shot, that’s 1TB in total.
