Morkel Erasmus
01-29-2015, 04:18 PM
Certainly not the best light - but it was a great sighting and day!
Our day started at 2am when I snapped awake in the Urikaruus Wilderness Camp in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park only to see a pride of lions drinking from the waterhole. All you could hear was their tongues lapping up the water from 50m away. I watched them for a while and then went back to bed. At about 03h00 they started roaring, 3-4 of them at a time, and they didn't stop until it was time to wake up (05h00). We then photographed them drinking again at first light. They were spending most of their time too far away from our camp walkway for proper photos, and they looked set on occupying the waterhole all day, so we headed north to 13th Borehole. Arriving there, what do we find? Mating lions, right next to the car (I posted and image earlier of this). Just as the copulating lions had done their thing, a lioness comes running to the waterhole from the opposite side of the Auob riverbed with 7 cubs of varying sizes in tow. We spent some time with them, and they soon headed over the next dune. We headed north to Mata Mata rest camp to make some calls and stock up on ice - and upon our return (now around 11am) the lioness and cubs were right around the same waterhole again. We spent some time with them, then headed back to our base at Urikaruus, where the lion pride was now passed out under a tree within sight of where we had to get out of the car. When a storm started building up at around 14h00 we decided to head back to the cubs, and we found them in the same spot. We spent about 2.5 hours with them all alone as the storm started building intensely. As the storm was about to break, the creche minder (lioness) got up and started marching them back up to the high dunes where they had come from that morning. The cubs all stopped for one last drink - this is that moment.
Our day ended with a male cheetah who was lazy and didn't want to hunt - but a pretty productive day!
Techs:
Nikon D810
Nikkor 400mm f2.8 VR
f9.0 | 1/800 SS | ISO-1000
Our day started at 2am when I snapped awake in the Urikaruus Wilderness Camp in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park only to see a pride of lions drinking from the waterhole. All you could hear was their tongues lapping up the water from 50m away. I watched them for a while and then went back to bed. At about 03h00 they started roaring, 3-4 of them at a time, and they didn't stop until it was time to wake up (05h00). We then photographed them drinking again at first light. They were spending most of their time too far away from our camp walkway for proper photos, and they looked set on occupying the waterhole all day, so we headed north to 13th Borehole. Arriving there, what do we find? Mating lions, right next to the car (I posted and image earlier of this). Just as the copulating lions had done their thing, a lioness comes running to the waterhole from the opposite side of the Auob riverbed with 7 cubs of varying sizes in tow. We spent some time with them, and they soon headed over the next dune. We headed north to Mata Mata rest camp to make some calls and stock up on ice - and upon our return (now around 11am) the lioness and cubs were right around the same waterhole again. We spent some time with them, then headed back to our base at Urikaruus, where the lion pride was now passed out under a tree within sight of where we had to get out of the car. When a storm started building up at around 14h00 we decided to head back to the cubs, and we found them in the same spot. We spent about 2.5 hours with them all alone as the storm started building intensely. As the storm was about to break, the creche minder (lioness) got up and started marching them back up to the high dunes where they had come from that morning. The cubs all stopped for one last drink - this is that moment.
Our day ended with a male cheetah who was lazy and didn't want to hunt - but a pretty productive day!
Techs:
Nikon D810
Nikkor 400mm f2.8 VR
f9.0 | 1/800 SS | ISO-1000