Africansummer on The Singemonkey

October 29, 2022

Sat, 29 Oct 2022 10:20:53 +0000

Well I’m sure you’ve all just been dying for another of my blockhouse walk photodocs… I had a cold and was waiting to come right before re-embarking on exercise. Hopefully the fact that I’m typing this rather than lying dead from a stroke means I waited long enough.

For the first time I decided to listen to music on my walk. Well… you add that mountain feeling to those music feelings and you can get pretty close to ecstasy, no lie. I had some thoughts:

March 02, 2021

Tue, 02 Mar 2021 14:53:06 +0000

I can’t remember if I posted one of these pics from Punda Maria restcamp in Kruger in Jan 2018. It’s far in the tropical North of the park. The waterhole you can watch from inside the camp is full of amazing visitors. Without having to be worried about gate-closing times, you can also catch them in the best evening light.

December 26, 2019

Thu, 26 Dec 2019 16:04:00 +0000

A waterbuck bull. It has big horns and a ring around its butt. What’s not to like?

December 25, 2019

Wed, 25 Dec 2019 19:06:23 +0000

This was the second leopard posing on our drive this afternoon. We only stopped for a few minutes for this one because it was 20 minutes to gate closing. The other one that @withoutaleaf photographed was even more amazing.

December 25, 2019

Wed, 25 Dec 2019 19:03:17 +0000

An old chap chewing on a grass stem.

December 25, 2019

Wed, 25 Dec 2019 09:06:48 +0000

There have been heavy rains. We’ve never seen Kruger this green before. Photos can’t convey the glowing, emerald green of parts of the Southern Park. The animals look like they’re in one of those English ‘safari parks.

December 25, 2019

Wed, 25 Dec 2019 09:02:38 +0000

After three days on the road it’s great to finally arrive at the best place on Earth.

August 07, 2019

Wed, 07 Aug 2019 19:07:04 +0000

Mad kitter. I’ve shot a lot of wildlife footage over the years but I’ve never done anything with it. Maybe it’s time to actually cut some of it together - even though the gear I used is pretty primitive by todays standards.

January 11, 2019

Fri, 11 Jan 2019 08:15:31 +0000

Not my best pic from the trip. But you can’t beat this for excitement. We were given bad instructions on where to look for this leopard - so out of 35 mins we spent there we spent about 5 mins actually looking at the animals. But shortly after we did spot them, this little leopard kitten stuck up it’s little head and I grabbed a couple of pics.

This also shows you why people use such enormous lenses for wildlife photography. This was with a long lens (500mm) and a 1.4x extender. And this is still a crop of only probably 40% of the image area. On a phone this leopard cub would have only been a few pixels.

January 09, 2019

Wed, 09 Jan 2019 11:30:45 +0000

Crested Barbet. Not uncommon to see in Johannesburg gardens. I managed to photograph a few things that got close enough for my Pentax 67 film camera. I’ll have to wait and see whether any of them worked out. I might try it again though. It’s a lot of fun to use and the clatter of that enormous shutter is very satisfying.

January 09, 2019

Wed, 09 Jan 2019 11:27:38 +0000

It’s our last day in Kruger. So lucky to get to stay so long, and yet it seems to always be over so fast.

We saw this smart little Black-Backed Jackal yesterday. Just taking it easy in the twilight.

January 06, 2019

Sun, 06 Jan 2019 16:18:04 +0000

One more for today (had no signal this morning). We came across a hyena family - including the littlest hyena. Full of fun and playing with its siblings.

January 06, 2019

Sun, 06 Jan 2019 16:15:32 +0000

We finally saw a spotty cat. This was yesterday. Quite a scrum of cars. We saw one better today though that @withoutaleaf got some nice pics of.

January 06, 2019

Sun, 06 Jan 2019 16:09:53 +0000

The Nahpi Boulder in late afternoon with beautiful post-rain skies. In my head this kind of scene is as South African as it gets.

January 06, 2019

Sun, 06 Jan 2019 16:07:51 +0000

We were visited by this toad that came to eat our bugs.

January 03, 2019

Thu, 03 Jan 2019 08:32:01 +0000

We’re in Pretoriuskop after a bit of an exhausting day yesterday. Got up to go driving around at 4 AM and didn’t settled down in our new place here until 5 PM.

December 31, 2018

Mon, 31 Dec 2018 08:08:52 +0000

We’re taking a camp day today. No driving out. Just seeing what wildlife’s in Skukuza and the river and checking out some of the old exhibits.

December 31, 2018

Mon, 31 Dec 2018 08:05:49 +0000

We took it pretty easy yesterday after our early starts. We haven’t really had time to really just relax since we left Cape Town. Aparna spotted this orchid growing in one of the bushveld trees - which we thought was pretty amazing. And just right for my 1970s 105mm lens.

December 29, 2018

Sat, 29 Dec 2018 14:31:37 +0000

The Sabie River just after daybreak.

December 28, 2018

Fri, 28 Dec 2018 12:28:36 +0000

“Hail the jewel at the heart of the lotus.” We saw a lot of amazing bird behaviors today. Dancing Mourning Doves. This African Jacana bowing to this water lily while its mate looked for twigs as presents. And rollers bobbing and squawking at each other. None of the pics I took of this extraordinary behavior were any good though. Naturally.

December 28, 2018

Fri, 28 Dec 2018 12:21:18 +0000

A damp vulture. You probably can’t see on instagram, but the heat finally broke this morning and the rain came down. From 30C at dawn it’s now a comfy 23C with the delicious sizzle of rain with occasional thunder.

December 28, 2018

Fri, 28 Dec 2018 12:16:11 +0000

We got up at 4 this morning to go look for these lions in the hopes that they’d be doing something in la crepescule du matin. Well, at least they weren’t hiding under a bush.