Serengeti Part I - Lions and Leopards
Lions on a rock, leopard in a tree
06.02.2020 - 06.02.2020
View
Baby Boomers - Tanzania 2020
on Grete Howard's travel map.
Every morning Malisa starts the day with “Let's go and see what nature has to offer us today”.
Yes, let's.
It looks like it could be a nice day.
Another daily ritual on safari is naming our 'breakfast' – ie. the first animal we see of the day. Today it is a Black Backed Jackal.
Eastern Chanting Goshawk
Lion
Fast asleep under a tree, all we can see of the cat is his stomach covered in flies.
He has been feasting on a nearby buffalo kill, and a putrid smell still hangs in the air.
In the trees vultures wait for their turn to finish off what little is left of the buffalo.
In the distance, a hyena sniffs the air as he heads for the carcass.
The road is like a quagmire; any more rain we are going to need a boat!
Of course, a lion sighting attracts a huge crowd, which certainly doesn't help.
More and more people are arriving.
We leave them to it and carry on to “see what else nature has to offer us”.
Black Breasted Snake Eagle
Grey Backed Fiscal Shrike
They seem to be everywhere!
Fork Tailed Drongo
Close-up using Big Bertha (my 600mm lens + 1.4 converter + 1.6 cropped body = 1344mm)
Fischer's Lovebirds
A whole tree full of them!
That's a whole lotta loving
White Rumped Helmetshrike
Speckled Fronted Weaver
Rock Hyrax
Lions
Two lions on top of a rock, not doing much.
They both fidget a little, and occasionally put their heads up, but never at the same time.
We move along a little to try and get a better view of them.
We notice one of the females is collared for tracking purposes, but we still can't see them properly, so we move on.
Leopard
Another traffic jam very close by indicates that there is something else about, and Malisa hears on the radio that there is a leopard in a tree.
I have no idea what this guy is doing, but I have to admit that I would not be walking about like that knowing that there is a leopard in the vicinity.
As some of the other vehicles move off, we can get nearer to be able to see the big pussy cat.
When I say “a bit nearer”, this guy is still quite some distance away, but with my long telephoto lenses I can manage to get some semi-decent images. As with most other places, there is some considerable atmospheric distortions when photographing close-ups of objects that far away.
She is most definitely not settled on that branch and keeps moving around.
It looks like she is going to jump down from the tree!
Not so much 'jump' as gingerly making her way down the trunk like a scared y-cat!
She's gone, lost in the long grass. We head back to the lions for another look.
Time for our breakfast, and as we make our way to the picnic site, we stop for a couple of little birds.
Willow Warbler
Stout Cisticola - another lifer.
And some giraffes.
Thank you Calabash Adventures for making this safari happen.
Posted by Grete Howard 02:31 Archived in Tanzania Tagged animals birds wildlife africa safari tanzania eagle birding lion giraffe flooding leopard weaver shrike hyrax jackal drongo bird_watching african_safari calabash_adventures rock_hyrax snake_eagle safari_in_africa cisticola goshawk wildlife_photography fiscal_shrike quagmire lovebirds leopard_in_a_tree warbler Comments (2)
