November 29, 11:45AM, Johannesburg

Back in the room at the Garden Court in J’burg. Resting up after a full day travel yesterday.

The last few days at Nossob were full of lions.  Early one morning, Albie, Gina and I staked out a waterhole, hoping against hope that a brown hyena would show up.  Not much was happening – just a few birds and the ever present jackal or two.  Suddenly we noticed that the two jackals present were looking intently down the riverbed.  There were bushes blocking my vision but Albie was able to look around the bushes and then said, “Dan, get ready!  There’s a massive lion walking toward the waterhole.” He re-positioned the vehicle so we could shoot this male coming in.  This was certainly the same male we’d seen a couple of mornings previously and he’d obviously eaten, well, because his belly was swollen like a tick.  It was almost painful to see, he was so full.  He walked slowly up the dry riverbed, backlit by the early morning sun, and came to the waterhole where he drank an enormous amount of water.  He did a bit of territory marking, walked past the vehicles (there were two of us there) and plopped down in the road.  As more vehicles arrived, and as the day got hotter, he moved up the dune and dropped down under a bush, down for the count.  Another beautiful view of one of these dark-maned lions.  Just stunning animals.

We really didn’t get much the rest of that very, very hot day.  I think it hit 42 C, which is about 107 or 108 F.  It’s too hot for the animals to do much and we didn’t get much accomplished.  The night was stinking hot in the room and I hardly slept at all.  A little after midnight, a lion began roaring, very close.  Like right outside the camp.  He continued at about hourly intervals until sometime after 4AM.  When we got up and got sorted, he roared again and we realized that he was lying in the cool sand, literally right outside the gate.  We could stand 20 feet away from him.  Too dark to photograph, but amazing to see and experience and, as you’d imagine, it caused quite a bit of excitement in the camp.  Soon, he got up and began lumbering past the hide to the waterhole that is adjacent to the camp. 

Once the gate opened, we headed south, ignoring the crowd chasing the big male lion.  We were still hoping against hope to see a brown hyena.  We staked out a waterhole well south of the camp but with no success.  When we headed back to the camp though, a lioness with her three little cubs was at the waterhole just outside the camp.  We quickly jumped out and walked to the hide and got to spend a few minutes with mom and cubs.  It’s just an awesome experience.  Not award-winning photography, but just a great experience and not one that many people get to have in their lives.

On our last evening drive at Nossob, we say a couple of cheetah brothers, very well fed, but too far away to make photographs.  Other than that, very quiet.  And cool somehow…. It had transitioned from 107F one day to maybe mid-70s F in one day.  Quite cool driving around with the windows down.

Next morning we took a brief game drive, back to camp for breakfast, and then for the long, leisurely drive back south to Twee Rivieren Camp.  It was Thanksgiving Day and for another year, we were able to spend Thanksgiving in the bush.  So much to be thankful for.

Thanksgiving dinner….

Friday, up early, and on the road to J’burg.  It’s almost exactly 1,000 km from Twee Rivieren Camp to our hotel in J’burg, so it was a very long day, with Albie doing all of the driving.  And then it was time to say goodbye to Albie and offer thanks to him for the terrific job he did.  I’d highly recommend Albie Venter as a guide to anyone contemplating a trip to Southern or Eastern Africa.  He’s extraordinarily knowledgeable both as a photographer and as a guide.  Just a damned nice human being too.  Good company and someone who is always concerned that his guests are getting the best possible experience.

The road back.

Dinner at the Garden Court, and this morning we slept in LATE.  We’re tired.  Breakfast here, a late check out and then we’re off to the airport this afternoon for a late evening flight.  We’ll have hours to kill at the airport, but that’s really ok for us.  It’s kind of part of that transition from bush to home. It’s a very nice airport and it’s an opportunity to do some shopping and just take it easy and think about what we’ve experienced and what’s to come.

So, homeward soon.  Heading home to see Aislin, Tunzi, Jan and Jim, and our many friends in Oregon.

November 25, 2:05PM, Nossob Camp

Another hot afternoon at the table.  Gina and I took naps – sleeping deeply while a fan blows air over us – and now I’m writing and Gina’s reading a book. 

Another good morning. 

We headed south, hoping to intersect the path of that large pride of lions.  Albie had also heard that a cheetah was sighted about 30 km south of the camp, so it made sense to head that direction and keep our plans flexible. We found where the lions had stepped out of the bush, onto the roadway during the night, but it looked like they headed north on the road for a short distance and then stepped off to the west.  So we shrugged, and continued south hoping to find cheetah.  Eventually, we found a vehicle parked in the road and it was someone Albie had worked with previously and he told us that there was a mother cheetah and two nearly independent cubs, working their way down the riverbed.  We were able to pick them up and, indeed, they were working their way along the riverbed heading south, moving very slowly and cautiously.  They were too far out to take a shot so it was, again, a matter of guessing where they were going and trying to position ourselves to get a shot.  Albie estimated that they were headed to a waterhole about 1 km south so we headed there, found a spot and decided to wait.  But after waiting for quite a while, we headed back out to find them because it didn’t seem like they were coming.  But they were, just very slowly.  Back to the waterhole to wait.  And wait.  It seemed likely that they’d dropped down the shade somewhere for a nap and so we weren’t sure if they were coming or when.  We decided that that was a good time for a coffee break so we broke out the thermos and the cups and the biscuits and just then mom cheetah slowly moved out of the bush and began to cautiously make her way to the waterhole, cubs following far behind. 

It’s not clear to us why they were moving so slow and cautiously.  Albie thinks mom was hunting and she was looking around very carefully at everything.  It’s also possible that they were very nervous about lion in the area (like the big pride?  Or someone said they’d heard a male lion calling in that area early in the morning).  At any rate she moved very cautious and drank very cautiously.  The two cubs came into the area and one drank, clearly on edge, hissing at the water from time to time as though the whole thing was terrifying.  The second cub never drank at all.  Mom eventually plopped down in the shade, quite close to us and the two cubs joined.  They rested for a few moments before getting up and continuing to move south down the riverbed, toward a larger tree.

We photographed mom and cubs, but the good light was gone and there was a lot of heat haze so the images won’t be great.  But it was a great sighting – very satisfying to see mom and cubs.  Mom’s obviously done a good job for these little ones.  Survival rate for cubs is very low and it’s not unusual for a mother to lose all of her cubs.  So to get two up to near adulthood is quite a feat.  She’s a good mom.

Juvenile cheetah calling for mom

The juvenile cheetahs keeping up with mom

Mom drinks very nervously at the waterhole

By then, light was gone and it was getting hotter on this yet another beautiful cloudless day and so we headed back for breakfast.  After breakfast, Gina and I spent a bit of time at the hide here and saw 5 secretarybirds interacting and one of them made this belching/roaring call as it drove another away from the water that I’d never heard before.  Nothing like the recordings I have. So, something new there to add to the memory banks.

Gina at the hide

And now two hours before we head back out for the end of the day drive.

November 24, 3:30PM, Nossob Camp

Up from an afternoon nap to write a few words before we head back out.  It’s strikingly clear today, and it’s hot.  Gina’s still sleeping and it’d be tempting to sleep more but I’m afraid if I don’t get up and moving, I won’t be sleeping tonight.  Sleep has been very messed up and it’s only now beginning to approach a point where I’m not conscious of the impact of jet lag and sleep disruption.

Yesterday morning I goofed up the plan and got Gina and I up an hour too early (3:30AM rather than 4:30) and we got to spend an hour on the deck in the cool pre-dawn.  We heard a lion very close and he called repeatedly as he moved basically east to west in front of the camp.  There’s really nothing like it and it bode well for the morning drive that lions, or at least this male, were close by.  We bolted out the gate right at 5:30, along apparently with everyone else, and headed south.  I’m assuming there was word in camp that the large pride we’d seen a couple of days ago was south of here so they all just took off in a stampede.  We took our time on the road, which follows a dry riverbed that only flows about once a century when Albie spots, off to the left, a beautiful Kalahari male, laying right out in the open about 500 yards off.  Kalahari males are famous for their full manes that are almost black with a golden fringe around their heads and this was a beautiful guy.  Cars kept passing us, either because they didn’t see the male, or because they were so fixated on finding the large pride that they couldn’t be bothered with one lion.  We stopped to watch because we knew that once the sun came up, he’d be moving along, eventually finding a place with shade.    And he did eventually stand, and begin walking parallel to the road and we slowly began rolling to keep pace.  And he looked like he was going to turn to his left and head up over the ridge away from us but then he turned back to the right and began angling toward the road. 

It was just gorgeous.  The light was beautiful and the lion was walking through a field of three thorn flowers as he slowly moved on a trajectory which looked like it would intersect the road.  Then it was on for us – trying to anticipate where he’d come out so that we could position ourselves to get a head on shot of him walking through the flowers in this beautiful light.  By this time there were other vehicles following the progress of the lion but Albie did a fantastic job of backing the car quickly into position and that beautiful black maned lion moved through the field of flowers and… I couldn’t get a shot as the autofocus grabbed every twig and flower and everything but any feature on the lion’s face, and I couldn’t get to manual focus on this unfamiliar setup before that brief moment was gone and he stepped into the roadbed.

Understand that the base of the KTP is fine sand that extends a couple hundred feet deep.  As they’ve graded the road over the years, it sits about 1 – 2 feet below the surface of the surrounding land.  The lion stepped into the roadway and began walking toward us, followed by a phalanx of other cars.  We continued to back up, giving him plenty of room, hoping that he’d eventually step off the roadway, allowing us a shot at him.  He was walking directly into the early morning light so if we could just get a clear shot it was going to be beautiful. Someone in a vehicle behind us got impatient and jumped in front of the lion at an angle and he stepped off the roadway and walked for maybe 30 yards up at ground level, giving us a perspective at just below eye level with a clean background and so Albie and I finally got beautiful shots of this very handsome lion as he walked and marked a bush before coming back down to the roadway.

It’s probably the best sighting of a male lion that I’ve had yet, and such a beauty he was.  That shot made the whole day and we decided to not get greedy and to let him alone so we sat still in the roadway and he walked by the vehicle, not 5 feet from us and on his way.  We let the vehicles past, and then we were on our way.

A fine Kalahari black-maned lion.  Just a stunning animal.

Kalahari traffic jam

After that, we headed north.  We didn’t see a lot but, after the morning, we weren’t disappointed with that.  We eventually camped out at a waterhole where there have been sightings of jackals catching Namaqua sandgrouse.  And sandgrouse came and went and jackals came and went without much action. 

This morning we again headed north and saw almost nothing, eventually stopping at that first waterhole north of the camp to wait it out.  Again, Namaqua sandgrouse, various doves, jackals. Then a bateleur dropped in to drink water.  He hung around for a while and we got nice take-off shots of that beautiful bird.  This evening we headed south and found the pride of many lions, about 14 or so that we could see, all asleep in a pile under a tree far, far away.  We had to make a decision whether to wait for them in hopes that both they would get up and begin moving before we had to head back to camp AND that if they did move, they would move in our direction, or try and find something else for the evening and see if we could catch up with them in the morning.  We chose the latter.  And saw nothing to shoot.  That’s how it is here.  You really have to just play the odds and be prepared to work for any shot you get.

Bateleur in flight.  

November 22, 2014, 1:35 PM

Some quiet moments in Nossob Camp in the center of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park.  We drove up from Twee Rivieren Camp, which is at the entrance to KTP, yesterday.  It was a long and very hot day yesterday as we made our way up north across an increasingly harsh and dry landscape, traveling on a narrow path sculpted into the soft white sand of the Kalahari.  We had very nice sightings along the way – more than I’ll likely remember, but including Giant Eagle Owls, Spotted Eagle Owls, Pale Chanting Goshawks, Gabar Goshawks, Martial Eagles, Brown Chested Snake Eagles, Tawnie Eagles, just to mention birds of prey.  Mammals included Oryx, Meerkat, Springbok, Slender Mongoose, Yellow Mongoose, Whistling Rats, Red Hartebeest and a lioness sleeping at a waterhole very close to the road. I’m sure I’m forgetting others. We also saw a Mole Snake and a beautiful Cape Cobra that we almost drove over.  If you don’t know the Cape Cobra, you should look it up.  It’s just a gorgeous snake ranging in color from a very pale yellow to rich butterscotch.  This snake was a beautiful butterscotch color and she apparently did stand up and spread her hood at the car, though sitting in the back seat, I didn’t get to see that behavior.  We are certainly hoping to see more of those guys. 

Entry into the park….

Twee Rivieren Camp

We arrived at Nossob mid-day, rested briefly.  Gina decided to stay in camp and Albie and I went back out at 4:30 PM yesterday and camped on the waterhole with the lioness, figuring we’d let the action come to us as the light improved into the evening.  And the lioness slept as time crept on while we sat in a hot car that was thankfully parked under some shade alongside the waterhole.  She’d occasionally raise her head or roll over, but gave little sign of doing much as the afternoon wore on and the light got better and better.  Eventually a Red Hartebeest approached the waterhole but stopped short and stood around for a time, just out of reach.  The lioness seemed interested and watched the hartebeest carefully but the hartebeest must have caught scent of her, or maybe saw her and just wouldn’t approach.  Finally, she trotted and hopped away in a gait that told everyone she’d seen the lion and wasn’t about to be taken today.  We waited longer, messing about with some photos of birds and talking as the time ticked down and just as the best light left us and we were within 15 minutes of having to return to camp.  Then Albie tapped me and said that there was a Brown Hyena approaching the waterhole.  I’d never seen a brown hyena and neither had Albie, and it was high on both of our wish lists for this trip.  It came in on a straight line toward the waterhole, apparently completely oblivious to the lioness lying alongside a log off on the other side of the small pond.  The lioness watched intently as the brown hyena walked up and started drinking.  We were sure we were about to witness some real bush murder here because predators generally have little use for other predators and the lioness is a much more powerful predator than the brown.  She stood up, intensely focused on the brown hyena, and walked straight for it.  She walked right up the hyena who somehow was completely unaware and got to within 2 feet of it and then the hyena let out this bark/shriek and arched its back, head down in a submissive display and puffed up, almost exactly like a housecat would do if it was suddenly surprised and trapped by a large dog.  Unbelievably, the lioness just stood there as though curious and the hyena slowly turned away and began to move off, picking up speed as it gained a bit of distance.  The brown remained puffed up, looking like it had a long, unruly Mohawk as it realized that it was somehow going to live through this day because I’m sure that question was in great doubt in its mind for a moment.

You know, you live for those sightings.  We both would have been happy to have simply seen a brown hyena come to the waterhole and drink a bit of water and then trot off.  That would have been very satisfying.  We’d have never expected to see an interaction between a brown hyena and a lion, let alone one where the lioness just stood there and let they hyena escape with its life.  It was really a miracle.

Cape turtle doves frolic in the water while lioness sleeps

Brown hyena flees in abject terror after encounter with lioness.  Somehow this hyena escaped with its life….

Back in camp last night we had lovely grilled lamb and tried not to rub it in with Gina.

And, after a very hot night (no A/C at this camp…), we went out this morning and saw a juvenile pale chanting goshawk eating a mole snake on the ground, a huge pile of about 14 lionesses and young well off the road and then a beautiful pair of swallow-tail bee-eaters excavating a nest hole in the berm of the sandy road.  We also saw a pair of lanner falcons.  Not good light to photograph, but just beautiful birds.

This morning a layer of clouds rolled in.  It’s not nearly as hot as yesterday, but the light is not great either.  Seems thick and I’m not expecting this to burn off or move on by this evening’s drive. 

We’ve had breakfast and a bit of a nap, and we’re about an hour away from getting together to share images and talk about what next.

The experience of using the Nikon body has been mixed.  I had multiple issues with the D3S yesterday and was getting wildly variable exposures.  Albie swapped his D3 with me while he tried to work out what was going on with the D3S.  He eventually did a complete reset to initial factory settings and now it seems to be working fine.  I suspect that I did something as I was trying to figure out how to get it to back-button focusing where I locked some exposure value and it quit metering.  Something…. Anyway, I think we’ll switch back this afternoon and I’ll try and get a better feel for it.

Nossob Camp is really way out in the bush.  This is about as isolated as I’ve been in Africa.  Power on only part of the day.  No A/C.  No cell phone coverage.  It’s very quiet and remote and harsh and lovely here.

Morning at Nossob Camp

Room at Nossob Camp.  Can you tell which side is Gina's and which side is Dan's?