Once again, the cheetah brothers that I saw two nights in a row in the Linyanti Swamp area of northern Botswana. These are the same cheetahs in the photo that I sent a few weeks ago, perched on top of the termite mound. It was getting dark and they were surveying the area for a late dinner. When they began to look impatient — as if about to attack — I switched my camera to a slow shutter speed to capture the motion blur. They took off at the exact same time, but I believe both photos are of the same cheetah.
We were tracking lions with no luck on this particular morning, but the chase did lead us to a few other animals, including these two ostriches. These guys are big — males can be up to 9 feet tall and weigh 340 pounds.
Giraffes always make for good silhouettes. This one was taken in the Kalahari desert at twilight. There was just enough light left to allow me to record a bit of detail in the foreground giraffe.
The meerkats seemed to have three morning activities — standing guard while watching for predators, eating, and playing. I was never quite sure where a fight would break out but was able to catch the action every now and again.
Here’s another of the black backed jackals that I saw so many of in the Central Kalahari. This particular guy was as intrigued with me as I was with him. The sun was setting behind him providing the nice backlight.
This antelope species is called a tsessebe. Not the most striking hooved quadrupeds on the savanna, but they did look pretty good silhouetted in the tall grass on this one particular morning.
Other than meerkats, there wasn’t a lot of activity in Makgadikgadi Pan in the dry savanna of northwestern Botswana. Makgadikgadi Pan is one of the largest salt flats in the world and is all that remains of a great lake that dried up thousands of years ago. Being such a vast, flat area, it was pretty cool to see the occasional zebra making its way across the Pan. I took this photo first thing in the morning and I was able to get out of the safari vehicle and down on the ground to get the perspective of the zebra against the blue sky. I also used a very slow shutter to give a little motion blur as I panned with the zebra’s movement. This one goes out to my zebra crazed cousin Cristin.
The elephants in Botswana are some of the largest on the African continent. We were obviously very close to this guy, and when he raised his ear in a defensive display it gave me the opportunity to get an edge to edge close up.
Hippos are fast. Very fast. I knew this, but had never seen one running before. They can top out at about 30 miles per hour — faster than a human. Pretty amazing considering that they are the second largest land mammal next to the elephant. We saw this guy darting through the grass first thing in the morning, just outside of our camp. The oxpeckers were doing their best to keep up the pace.
This bird is called a little bee eater. And, of course, what good is a bee eater if it isn’t eating a bee? Little bee eaters are fairly common throughout Africa. This one was photographed in the Linyanti swamp in northern Botswana.
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