Out of Africa Day 1

Welcome to the 1st day of the Out of Africa BLOGcast and what a great day it has been. Travelling of course is always the downside, but the excitement of being on safari is one that is hard to beat and overcomes even the grumpiest traveler (Tracey – that is Andy by the way!!!) Hey, whose writing this! Anyway we are finally here and what a place here is. I am sitting on a wooden veranda overlooking the sweeping bend of a river sipping a cold beer - it is a tough life being a wildlife photographer! We are based at Kaingo Camp, home of Derek and Jules Shenton of Shenton Safaris, deep in the South Luangwa valley in Zambia. It is a really beautiful spot as the hot dry season is reaching its peak and all the wildlife is congregating around the Luangwa River and the lifeblood that it gives.

It always takes us a few days to get into the feeling of a place but this afternoon we really hit the jackpot big style. Unlike a lot of other places in Africa the vehicles are open here, which means great all round visibility and therefore better opportunities for observing wildlife. It also means that you have to watch your movement carefully in the vehicle and always wear dark clothes; it really feels like how safaris used to be and for us is how safaris should always be.

Our first encounter happened within a few minutes of leaving camp as we slowly edged up to a female Thornicroft Giraffe (a subspecies of the Southern Giraffe) and her young calf. It was a really beautiful few minutes as the young chap nudged closer to the safety of the female whilst taking in every opportunity to give us the once over. A lovely encounter to start our safari with, too many people just ignore giraffes on safari which is a shame as they are really beautiful and special animals.

Always keen to checkout the local lions we moved to the area of the Mwamba pride, who are over 20 in number and have a tree climbing habit that I wanted to capture. Alerted by some circling vultures Derek edged the vehicle slowly around some bushes and there in front were 10 sets of eyes fixed firmly on us! Lions are awesome big cats to spend time with and this pride was no exception with an abundance of small teenage thugs who were desperate to romp around and cause havoc. Since the sun was getting lower in the sky and the day was cooling off (thank god for that), the lions were becoming more active and it was not a surprise when two of the females got up and walked off up the road. Seeing the opportunity for the late light I asked Derek to spin around and to get ahead to them, which he did by cutting a wide circle on an adjacent road; it is the number one rule of all safari photography that you never cut an animal off from its path and great guides like Derek do this instinctively. We were now slightly off to one side of the lions track but they were coming right towards us, eyes fixed directly on our every move. Slowly I leant down over the side, using my eye-level finder to give me a lower angle than usual, and fixed my autofocus right between the eyes of the leading lion; the light was breathtaking, really atmospheric and incredibly orange. She obliged by staring right back into the lens, just for a moment but enough to send me a message which I received loud and clear. I carefully took the shots I needed then slowly drew back into the vehicle and watched her walk slowly by. They disappeared one by one into the bushes as this was now their time for hunting, and a time when we wanted to leave them alone. Heading back we found a nice spot in the plains, cracked out the cold beers and waited for the full moon rise which promised to be spectacular. It was, simply awesome, and a perfect round off to our first day and one helluva nice lion picture. See you tomorrow!!!

Hippos and Lions

Welcome to day 2 of the Out of Africa BLOGcast. This BLOGcast is really testing our skill as photographers as the images that you see here are virtually straight from the camera, with little colour correction possible other than some small tweaks in our raw software. These are usually done by candle light, under the stars whilst elephants wander through the camp, which teaches you to get everything done very quickly indeed! Since I have no idea how the images will look when uploaded to the website (which we are doing by satellite phone every lunchtime), please forgive any slight colour in-balances. At the end of the day all of these images are straight, without any manipulation, which is how wildlife photography should be. Now down to the action! Day 2 of our Zambian adventure started with an amazing sunrise, the red orb of the sun rose slowly out of the horizon pushing its gentle light across the plains. It was one of the finest sunrises that we have seen in all our travels in Africa and a great start to what was to become an amazing first full day in South Luangwa. To make the most of the stunning sunrise we travelled all of 1 minute from camp and parked the vehicle on a bend in the river overlooking hundreds of hippos. They had been walking around the camp all night long, hardly making a sound as they are surprisingly light footed for something so bulky; hippos are only dangerous if you surprise them and get in the way of their safe path to water, something which unfortunately you might only learn once! Now, about 15 minutes after dawn, they had all gathered back in the water apart from a few stragglers who were lumbering around on the flats. Hippos are brilliant fun and the air was filled with their wheeze-honks (the official name for their general method of chatter) and every few minutes scuffles would break out which usually resulted in large sets of teeth being shown.



As the sun rose higher we decided to move a little further along the river and sit in Shenton Safaris' purpose built hide, right in front of a large group of hippos. The mother of all fights broke out about a minute after we got into the hide, with two hippos erupting continuously out of the water in front of us; in between the fights they dung fanned at each other, a practise best left undescribed but you should get the general idea. In all we stayed over an hour in the hide and the fight was almost continuous throughout, a brilliant punch-up to start to the day!

As the heat started to ramp up we decided to sit in another Derek's hides overlooking a waterhole that we knew the Mwamba lion pride loved to frequent. Slowly, led by Derek and Jules as always, we crept into the hide and immediately saw the pride sleeping under a tree well above the waterhole; sleeping is perhaps an understatement, lions do not sleep they totally zonk out with legs sticking out in all directions. We sat and waited and waited and waited until finally the lions suddenly became alert. One moved off behind into the bush and another took up position down the bank, just out of site of the waterhole. All was quiet and we waited, until finally three warthogs appeared and headed towards the water, completely oblivious to the waiting danger. As soon as they reached the water two of the lions ran from behind them and trapped one against a steep bank, the others setting a new record for the vertical hill climb in the warthog Olympics.

The lioness wrestled the warthog to the floor and was busily strangling it when the rest of the pride arrived at speed and started a tug of war over the unfortunate warthog, which was now screaming a sickening cry..

Eventually the warthog disappeared in a mass of lion bodies, but then suddenly re-emerged and for a few seconds we saw the terror in its dying eyes; a female lion finally ended its struggle for life.