African Wild Cat

[Morkel Erasmus]

How about some variety? At least when it comes to the species I've been posting :t3.
This African Wild Cat was photographed one afternoon during our last trip to the Kalahari (Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park). We spent about 45 minutes with this individual as it tried to ambush some jackal kits who were hiding in this den system (you see an entrance right in front of the cat).

Techs:
Nikon D3s
Nikkor 500mm f4 VR-II
1.4x teleconverter
f8.0 | 1/1000 SS | ISO-400
about 80-90% of full frame image

[shane shacaluga]

Evil looking cat!

Is this a domestic cat thats bred in the wild or some other species of cat?

[Anette Mossbacher]

Great cat Morkel, looks good to me in all :bg3:
Light is great and sharpness I need to learn more :w3
Very well done

Ciao

Anette

[Rachel Hollander]

Morkel - looks good to me with your usual excellent techs and the comp works very well. I'm impressed with a 45 minute sighting. Usually when I've seen them they have been quite skittish and wary.

TFS,
Rachel

[Morkel Erasmus]

Thanks Rachel, Shane and Anette!


Evil looking cat!

Is this a domestic cat thats bred in the wild or some other species of cat?

Shane, this is a pure feral species, quite larger than normal housecats and they have this typical coat marking/coloration. They are often, however, cross-bred accidentally by roaming housecats. Most game reserves in South Africa have a shoot-on-sight policy for feral housecats because of this.

[jack williamson]

That is a neat looking cat jacked up in the rear end like that. I would think this thing is pretty quick. Very good IQ and I love those green eyes.

Jack

[Morkel Erasmus]

Jack, you should see how high these guys can jump to catch birds in flight!! :Whoa!:

Check this one I quickly found on YouTube...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsl6bIIifvw

[jack williamson]

Wow! That is pretty impressive! I have always thought that cats were the most capable hunters on the planet.

Jack

[Loi Nguyen]

Morkel, its an unusual species to see during day time hours and you got to spend 45 min with it. Great for you. Love the cat and the sharpness, but wish the BG to be more interesting. Understood that you shot from a safari vehicle and cannot get lower. Loi

[Morkel Erasmus]

Loi, I was shooting from my own SUV which allows a lower POV than standard safari vehicles.
I'm not sure I understand what you want more from the background? It's clean and allows the subject to stand out...with the size of these animals you'd need to be able to leopard-crawl (not allowed in the National Park) to have a chance of getting an eye-level shot unless the cat is in a tree.

[Gabriela Plesea]

Morkel..........I am green with jealousy.....Had eight sightings of wild cat last year September in the Kalahari and almost all of them were sleeping in the fork of a tree. Turned away from us:bugeyed:. Not even the sound of chocolate wrapping could wake them up... I have a hundred images of a wildcat peeping between tree branches, or with branches covering its front paws and one ear. Another hundred images of a cat in the tree but against the sky (great exposure on the cat but the sky is blown). A few images of a cat hunting but she's too far away. I am so jealous! In fact I am going to look for one of these images and see what I can do with it...

What a beauty! I must admit-she's stunning, shot in great light, she's sharp, this image is so well processed...in fact this is so good that I ran out of superlatives. I love these felines, spend hours looking for them in (and under) every tree. They are so well camouflaged, often people drive past them...You didn't:S3: Congratulations, Morkel!

Warmest regards,

[Loi Nguyen]

Morkel, sorry, I didn't mean it the wrong way. I meant to say I would prefer to see less of the black burn area in the BG. Wonderful image of this species. I only had a glimpse of it during a night drive. Loi

[Morkel Erasmus]

No worries Loi - as Gabriela said this is a unique setting and time to see these guys in.
The black part of the background is the shadow of a camelthorn tree falling on the ground.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Morkel, like the 'skulking' posture, nice light too. Colours look balance along with the blacks, nice one.

TFS
Steve

[John Ippolito]

Morkel, nice job getting a quality image of this species. Posture, light on the eyes makes it work well. TFS this one.

[Brendon Cremer]

Lovely image Morkel, great colours and light well handled, i would possibly look at cropping a little off the bottom if it were mine :cheers:

[vishaljadhav]

Beautiful looking cat you have here, its very alike the Jungle cat we find here in India with that typical black tip on the tail
great details and i love the exposure as i can see the light stripes
nice looking image