Hope everyone had a great holiday. To get things going again, here’s a young cheetah cub taking a quick rest in-between chasing siblings across the savanna. Nikon Z8 with Nikkor 500mm PF lens, ISO 1800, f/5.6 at 1/1250th of a second.

We had a nice low vantage point on this hippo pool, which is unusual from a safari vehicle. We kept waiting for one of the hippos to show us those giant teeth but it was a relatively subdued group and they weren’t exactly cooperating. Finally this guy let out a bit of a half-hearted yawn and this was the best I could do. Photographed in the Masai Mara of Kenya on our recent trip. Nikon Z8 with Nikkor 500mm PF lens, ISO 3600, f/5.6 at 1/1250th of a second.

The yellow-billed stork is widely distributed throughout sub-Sahara Africa. That said, they exist in greater numbers in East Africa. Interesting fact about these guys — they hunt by their sense of touch rather than sight. They’ll dip their beak into the water and start moving it around until it comes in contact with prey (mostly small fish, but they also eat crustaceans, frogs, worms, insects and the occasional small mammal or bird). Once prey is detected, a rapid snap bill reflex occurs and the beak slams shut, the stork raises its head and swallows. This stork was resting along a river in the Masai Mara of Kenya. Nikon Z8 with Nikkor 500mm PF lens, ISO 280, f/5.6 at 1/2000th of a second.

Just a simple portrait of an olive baboon resting at the edge of a cliff in Kenya’s Masai Mara National Reserve. The sun was still relatively low in the sky and when the baboon turned his head slightly, his orange eyes were illuminated by the light. Nikon Z8 with Nikkor 500mm PF lens, ISO 360, f/5.6 at 1/250th of a second.

It was a lot of fun photographing these cheetah cubs as they chased each other all over the place in Samburu National Reserve. There were four of them and we saw them on three different occasions. This was early morning as the sun was starting to make its way into the sky. Nikon Z8 with Nikkor 500mm PF lens, ISO 1100, f/5.6 at 1/1250th of a second.

When you get a dramatic sky in Kenya, it doesn’t take long to find a zebra to walk under it. Nikon D850 with Nikkor 70-200mm lens (at 200mm) ISO 800, f/2.8 at 1/640th of a second.

A Masai giraffe rises above the tree line while life is in full swing in the Masai village in the background. Nikon D850 with Nikkor 70-200mm lens (at 200mm) ISO 800, f/5.6 at 1/640th of a second.

A few interesting facts about the eye of the ostrich: their eyes are bigger than their brains, their eyes are the largest of any land animal, their eyes are on the sides of the heads, they have great vision despite the fact their eyes can’t move around in their eye sockets. And as this photo illustrates, their eyes are visible even if they are looking in the complete opposite direction. Nikon Z8 with Nikkor 500mm PF lens, ISO 140, f/5.6 at 1/640th of a second.

This was our first lion encounter in the Masai Mara on our recent trip. We got close up and I took many frame-filling photos, but I liked this approach shot where I was able to use the environment to frame the lion as he sat atop a small hill. Nikon Z8 with Nikkor 500mm lens, ISO 5600, f/5.6 at 1/500th of a second.