Mating Jaguars

[philperry]

Sorry folks - this is a repost of a post that got removed for too many posts in 24 hrs. (Its a fair cop). I will try to re-post a couple of members comments that were deleted with my post.

I am posting this photo due to its wildlife interest rather than its photographic merit. Unfortunately I had flash settings problems which led to too slow shutter speeds and high ISOs so achieving razor sharpness was a problem. This picture also has an element of subject movement - but I'll just claim that as 'artistic blur' if you don't mind!

The sighting was made in the Cuaiba River area out of Porto Jofre in Brazil's Pantanal.

I watched a pair of courting jaguars for 40 minutes while they were out in the open on a riverine sandbank. They mated 5 times. This photo shows the female swiping at the male immediately after mating. His head and neck was covered with fresh wounds where she had clouted him, claws out.

My guide had never seen such a sighting in 30 years of field experience in S.America.

A real privilege to see such fantastic animals so close up and completely ignoring us and our spotlights (we were the only boat !). Awesome sighting.


Tech Details:
Canon EOS 7D + 400 f4 DO +1.4x

[Harshad Barve]

Once again I will say this is million dollar image , You are blessed to see this
TFS

[philperry]

I hope that this is not another etiquette breach. But here are a couple of member posts on my original (now deleted) post:

Peter Kes commented :
You privileged man. Great sighting and I like the blurred effect too. I might have liked it with a wider view, to include more of her as well.

Hilary Hann commented :
The sighting must have been incredible, well done for getting an acceptable image. Don't mind the blur, suits the feeling of tension and the nocturnal nature of the animals. Agree that not cropping the female would have been great, but well done anyway.


Thanks again Harshad. I was just blown away with the sighting. Didn't come down for quite a while. Now and again I just seem to be a cat magnet :)

[Hilary Hann]

No problems from me! :)

[Harshad Barve]

.


Now and again I just seem to be a cat magnet :)

Looks like so ,


.


Thanks again Harshad. I was just blown away with the sighting. Didn't come down for quite a while. Now and again I just seem to be a cat magnet :)

I may dare to say anyone of this forum will be blown away if they see Jaguar mating :):)

[philperry]

Unfortunately the female 'cropped' herself. The jaguars were so close that when they got up after mating I could not get them both in the frame - and you only have a half a second to get the picture.

[philperry]

Sorry - the Tech Details should state that the lens used was the 70-300 DO at 300mm

[Robert Amoruso]

Phil,

Good capture of some cool action. Thanks for reposting it.

[philperry]

Thanks for the encouraging comments everyone. Despite my mucking up the flash settings. Its also interesting to see the size difference between the male (right) an female (left).

[Shreyas Mantri]

It certainly must've been a great experience to see this rare sighting, Phil! Congratulations on that! No complaints on the image quality side with the given conditions.
Btw, off the topic, your profile picture appears to be made at my hometown, Udaipur - always good to see a bit of home :)

Thanks for sharing
Shreyas

[Todd Frost]

Nice to see the action and very rare. Unfortunately other than a document image of the encounter it doesn't work for me, don't care for the motion blur in this case. For me the wrong part of the image is sharp, needed the heads sharp. All in all wish I had been there to see this amazing sight. It is a shame to have setup problems in such an instance:(
TFS
Todd

[philperry]

Well spotted Sheyras! Yes my profile pic is taken from the Lake Palace at Udaipur with the main palace in the background. A wonderful place - Udaipur and India generally.

[philperry]

Sorry my typing is bad tonight Shreyas.

[Lorant Voros]

It is something all of us wish to see. Hope the path of the jaguar will be bigger and we can see many of them in the future. You are lucky for having experienced this. On the photography side it is indeed not too good, but nice that you shared it with us. Thank you.

[Morkel Erasmus]

awesome moment indeed Phil! can only imagine your glee at seeing this (and it seems the glee of the tour guide!)

the male is indeed quite larger than the female!

[Rachel Hollander]

Wonderful sighting. Thanks for taking us along.

Rachel

[Steve Canuel]

Must've been a real treat to witness. You may or may not know that these cats have also been spotted, although extremely rare, in Arizona in the southwestern U.S.
http://www.azgfd.gov/w_c/es/jaguar_management.shtml

[philperry]

Thanks for all the kind comments everyone. It really was an amazing sight.

Thanks Steve, I was already aware that there are jaguars in Arizona. Sadly parts of the US Government appear to be doing whatever they can to get rid of them. As a highly endangered species there should be a major protection program in place - but there isn't. One of the male jaguars was apparently darted too many times and unnecessarily and died as a result (as reported by Defenders of Wildlife et al).

[Sid Garige]

You are a luck man Phil.

[Grant Atkinson]

Hi Phil you seem to be on a mission to make us all green with envy with your rare cat sightings man...well done for even getting some kind of shot here.
cheers
Grant

[philperry]

Thanks Sid / Grant. Don't know what it is about cats - but they just fascinate me. Fortunately there are still plenty more cat species to hunt for !

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Phil,
You are blessed. I don't know if one can ask for a more fulfilling sighting.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[philperry]

Thanks Sabyasachi. It was a truly amazing sighting. A real adrenaline high.

[Hendri Venter]

Wow, lucky you. What a sighting!!

[philperry]

I just hope I did not use up too much luck on this sighting Hendri - I would hate to go through a big cat dry spell :)