I would like to entertain you a bit tonight with a fun image. Quite a number of issues with this frame, one of them being the fairly deep shadow on the LHS character, which bothers me tremendously. The scene was captured at a waterhole in the Kalahari and unfortunately pipes and other man-made elements were part of the "environment". I had to crop extensively to eliminate those and consequently IQ suffered quite a bit But I smile from ear to ear every time I look at this so I decided to share, if only to cheer you up for the evening.
Let me start by telling you briefly what is going on at those Kalahari waterholes... First of all, they are often dominated by certain species of birds who fly in to drink at particular times of the day. The birds are in turn prey to a number of bird eating raptors like Lanner Falcons, Gabar Goshawks and Rednecked Falcons. The most entertaining are probably the Lanner Falcons, and they are as frequent visitors as jackals. Flying at the speed of lightning, they rip the air in their attempts to strike one of the doves flying to, or drinking at the waterhole. One can actually hear them "cut the air" as they fly past the vehicle... The Jackals also try to surprise those innocent birds hiding behind rocks and pouncing randomly, hoping to snatch a Cape Turtle Dove or Namaqua Sandgrouse.
In this particular instance one dove fell into the water as the birds panicked during a Lanner Falcon raid. Despite the water being quite shallow he was slowly drowning. We really hoped that something would end his suffering but waited for some time and nothing happened. Interesting that a number of jackals were milling around, to our surprise and dismay none of them noticed this poor bird even though at times they drank quite close to it. Perhaps they were too nervous and preoccupied checking the surroundings for other predators...
Eventually one jackal noticed the drowning bird and grabbed it. He was busy swallowing the last bit - which by the way he did very greedily, feathers and all - when another fellow pitched up and interrupted his feast. The two got into a little squabble and both my companion and I managed a few frames, this is one of them
Had Enough!
. Quite a number of issues with this frame, one of them being the fairly deep shadow on the LHS character, which bothers me tremendously. The scene was captured at a waterhole in the Kalahari and unfortunately pipes and other man-made elements were part of the "environment". I had to crop extensively to eliminate those and consequently IQ suffered quite a bit
But I smile from ear to ear every time I look at this so I decided to share, if only to cheer you up for the evening.
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