…are huge and heavy. When they run, the earth trembles and the vibrations can be sensed far away, even by tiny invertebrates as worms which are remarkably similar to the trunk of elephants…
Tag: wildlife
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Flamingos
…and the endless pain of a hobby wildlife photographer that will never make it on the title page of the National Geographic until his death…
Birds are the perfect prey for a wildlife photographer. If you get close enough, you will see fantastic textures. The details formed by their eyes and feathers are like an alien life form. They also have this built-in nerdy look everybody loves. Well, I do, perhaps because I am a nerd. 🤓
Here is my flamingo set, that I want to share. It is from Salar de Atacama, San Pedro de Atacama, Región de Antofagasta, Chile and Aguada Blanca, Arequipa, Peru
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Sea Turtles from Puerto Escondido
Sea Turtles (Chelonioidea) are the panda bears of the seven seas. Everybody loves them, as they are cool, cute, and endangered. There are just seven types rooting back some 150 million years, and you will find them all over the globe close to the equator.
The first time you see one, you will go wild, but then you will realize they are quite common. It doesn’t change the fact that sea turtles have this built-in coolness feature.
Freshly hatched young sea turtle babies, or Tortuguitas, add on top an unholy sick amount of cuteness.
Usually, the nests are at an unknown location, and it is hard to predict when they hatch. For a regular traveler, this means, forget it! Your odds are not in your favor.
Travel Hack:
You do not have to book a tour for this. Get a taxi, drive to Coco’s Beach Club, at the beach walk about 500m to the right, support Viva Mar and just enjoy the moment.However, there is a perfect spot in a highly unexpectable place: Puerto Escondido, a relaxed town on the west coast of the pacific ocean in Oaxaca, Mexico. A go-to place for Lonely Planet backpack hikers resulting in a very vivid trashy nightlife around the central beach. A little to much action for sea turtles, but!
Playa Punta Colorada If you travel to the very west of Puerto Escondido, you will find a pristine endless sand beach, the Playa Punta Colorada, which is west of the Playa Bacocho. Such a beautiful place is, of course, the property of a very rich person. In this case, it is within the Carlos Slim Foundation portfolio.
Viva Mar Station 
Beach Police
You can only reach it through the Coco’s Beach Club that belongs to the Posada Real, more on this later, therefore no Lonely Planeters, no noise, and no pollution, just the right spot for cute little sea turtle babies.
Crowd gathering at 5 p.m. 
Ready to release 
Your baby sea turtle in a bowl
The Vive Mar cooperation operates there a hatch station. They patrol together with the police every day 30km to protect newly found nests. This translates to a constant supply of eggs ready to hatch, and they have a hatching every evening at 5 p.m.
…and then you enjoy the sundown… -
On photographing Leopards
Wildlife photography = waiting in the wild…
Back in 2007 where I had my first wildlife experience in Namibia I instantly fell in love with wildlife photograph. Etosha was a great experience but there where no leopard sightings. I was also lucky to meet Arnoud Quanjer – a real wildlife addict. He told me, if I am looking for leopards, I have to go to Sabi Sands.
Well five years later I had the chance, time, (little more) knowledge and equipment to go for it:
Shoot a leopard photo worthy to be on the cover page of National Geographic!
I know it is so foolish, but we all need goals, right?
I want to pull out three pictures and a short movie to show how f* hard it is to get even close to it…
Prequel: I already had some nice leopard shots, but the pinnacle of my expectation was at Londolozi. It is plain simple the best place on Earth to get leopard pictures.
I started to stalk leopards… reading: waiting and cursing the weather and light condition.
There was a female leopard watching over her prey. An impala kill up in the tree. There are plenty of opportunities for action and good shoots around this plot, as there are plenty of competitors around
The picture below is my pray. The female leopard guarding her prey. I was patient. spent hours in front of her – waiting! Meanwhile getting nice but boring photos. Have I mentioned it was cloudy?
An then an action! Some vultures came to close and I got this picture:
…even without the sunlight it would have been not so bad – but: for whatever reason (it is just 4 minutes after the previous picture) the camera was on ISO 10000. Nice, but noisy…
Here is the footage around the waiting. It is really highly condensed.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMAs-r37CUk
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Wildlife at Inyati
Enjoy the wildlife mix from my Inyati Lodge safaris trips at Sabi Sands.
Mama-phant & Baby-phant
I love birds – weird colors, textures and form factors. I’m so happy those dinosaurs survived.
Hypo wakeup
Baboons
Landscapes
Rhinos and Oxpeckers
Buffaloes everywhere
Late-night Leopard…and, as this is just a small sub sample to tease you enjoy the rest @ Flickr![AFG_gallery id=’6′] -
The Wild Dogs of Sabi Sands
On my last day at the Inyati Lodge I had the great luck to see Wild Dogs on a hunt or at the end. These creatures require huge hunting territories as they have to share it with other competing predators. They are endangered according to IUCN classification (3000 individuals left)…
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm4IFWZLRVY
Here is the full Flickr set
But back home I reviewed my copy of Planet Earth from BBC (you will see an incredible wild dog hunt from above) and I somehow got a bummer – the BBC pics where so much more intense. So I reviewed the ‘making of’ DVD’ and realized I am light years away from what I try to capture. Team (working for 10 years on Wild Dog hunting pics) vs. Kurt, GoPro vs. military eyeball (heligimbal) – I quit…
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The Selati Males – A coalition of four male lions in Sabi Sands
The Inyati Lodge was my next stop. Actually this was my first real game lodge and an incredible experience of wildlife and luxury. I will come back to this with an dedicated post but first I want to share my lion pictures from Inyati.
Inyati in Sabi Sands is currently in the center of the Selati Males territory. Four young male lions at the peak of power. They recently were able to take over the territory of an older coalition, the Mapogos.
I am deeply impressed by those magnificent cats. They radiate natural authority in a way I have not experienced elsewhere. But even though they are at the end of the food chain and they know about their power it is not an easy life.
A coalition usually takes over a territory and can feed on it in the next six years. Then younger ones will push them into retirement. For lions this means they have to start stealing kills from others and compete with other scavengers. A bitter end of life for a king…
A king has its reign and than he dies – it is inevitable…
This drowns me in a depressive philosophical mood thinking about life…
…for what all this hassle?!
The natural order does not allow any living being a comfortable existence. I’m chewing right now on my biltong stock and drinking an Amarula Creme and I realize I am incredibly lucky. Being a Human, living in this age and living in Europe. I fear this is a very rare glitch that will fade away…
Phuuu… this sounds really depressing. Let’s take a positive view on it: travel the world and absorb the wonders as long as it is possible 🙂
This is one of the main sports of my photos
Panorama of the spot
A real boys team
They know they are kings
I love cats…
Have I mentioned I love cats?
…hunting buffaloes is risky…
This lioness was totally fed up by a fresh Kudu kill just 2 meters away (wait for the pictures in upcoming posts) – perhaps one of the few moments of relaxation…
[AFG_gallery id=’5′]
An here is the link to the Flickr album
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Wildlife at Umkumbe (Sabi Sands)
You can see all pics also on Flickr – click here!
[AFG_gallery id=’4′]
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Diceros Bicornis (Black Rhino)
Probably one of my most lucky visuals. Diceros bicornis or the Black Rhino is considered critically endangered by IUCN. This one was a female and I was about 30m away from her. It was impossible to get closer and Frank my Ranger was very happy about that (they are naturally aggressive). You see the triangle shaped mouth that helps them to browse trees compared to the grass eating White Rhinos.
Unfortunately the dead animal (or its horns) is more valuable than gold, diamonds or cocaine (by weight).
This picture comes with no geo tags as I was told that poachers are meanwhile regularly scanning the web for the latest visuals to hunt them based on the geo tags of iPhones. Fortunately helicopters over national parks are themselves hunted by the local armies. However, it is hard to condemn the poachers as one kill brings them about half a million of dollars.
We have to condemn the market that is creating this demand. Traditional Chinese ‘Medicine’ – reminds me badly of the ‘scientific’ whale hunting…
Kydroon 