Chapter 5: Feline domesticity

[John M.]

 

  This chapter and the next, covering 2005 and 2008, will feature Yvonne’s images only. She was never shy of testing her action photography in Africa. She was also not one to display her pictures much, so I’ve had to search her files to try to make sure I don’t miss anything. That said, I may have posted some on ST years ago.  

  These were taken with a Canon EOS 1D Mark 2, and I think she was using my old Canon 100-400/4.5- 5.6 L IS lens, not an ideal tool. She honed her reflexes with faster lenses on basketball photography back home. I was a stick-in-the-mud, still using film.

 

  At Selinda in 2005, a roan antelope with a broken leg fell victim to a couple of lionesses, who in turn lost it to one of the males in the area. This is some of the action captured by Yvonne on the spillway as the male refused to share the spoils.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After losing that argument, the lionesses consoled each other before going off and getting themselves a buffalo.

 

 

Yvonne, who understandably was on the side of the lionesses, sarcastically called the male “Prince Charming”. Later, as nightfall approached, the local wild dog pack—which was denning near Zibalianja—came by and stared in the direction of the male as he lay digesting his first course near the kill.

 

 

Yvonne also captured other memorable action in the male-female relationship among the big cats on that safari at Selinda.

 

 

 

More action on the spillway: this old girl charged at us across the water. We speculated that she was bothered by toothache as much as our presence. To our relief, she stopped halfway.

 

 

Finally, a landscape image I discovered recently. It's one of my favourites from her files.

 

[Alex The Lion]

Great actions, those were some very dry years.

[ElenaH]

I liked the action photos very much. They have something special. Perhaps, it is becasue they cropped to show the emotions.

Thank you for sharing!

[John M.]

5 hours ago, ElenaH said:

I liked the action photos very much. They have something special. Perhaps, it is becasue they cropped to show the emotions.

Thank you for sharing!

Thank you. 

[John M.]

Still looking through my wife's files, I find her image of a Selinda spillway scene our group experienced in 2005.  We all got similar photos. This is one which hasn't been posted on ST or displayed anywhere else except on her desktop for the past 17 years. 

 

 

 

[madaboutcheetah]

Lovely , John 

[Biko]

@John M.Your beloved Yvonne was a gifted photographer, thank you for digging through her archives and sharing these photographs with us. They are timeless and a feast for my eyes.

[John M.]

Thank you Biko.  

[michael-ibk]

That Elephant photo is just wonderful! Also very cool Lion action.

[John M.]

3 hours ago, michael-ibk said:

That Elephant photo is just wonderful! Also very cool Lion action.

Thank you. Yes, cool 'heat of the moment' excitement🙂

[John M.]

   We really enjoyed night drives.  They provided photo opportunities often not available in daylight.  This leopard delayed our return to Zibalianja camp one night in 2005. From memory, I think it was after we viewed the elephants in the spillway at sunset.

 

 

 

   The leopard was drinking from a pool and was very relaxed. It reminded me of a different leopard sighting one night on an earlier visit to Selinda. We had the company in our car of Jan Graham, holder with her husband Brian of the Selinda lease. The leopard that night kept moving and was not relaxed, and Jan showed her concern for animal welfare by suggesting we might be stressing it. She told our driver-guide to call it a night and return to camp. 

[John M.]

   I suspect more than a few of us have wondered how best to preserve our safari photo memories and make them easily accessible. It was a former STer who suggested a solution to me.

   A couple of years ago, I was dissatisfied with how I was keeping my archives. I had a number of old-fashioned albums of prints, negatives and slides, plus about 200 CDs and DVDs of scans and original digital files, all carefully labelled and all of which were backed up on external hard drives. I've now thrown away the plastic discs, and will keep the old albums and the hard drives... even though they'll be paid little if any attention in my dotage and after.

   I've now had half a dozen coffee-table style books made, each one covering a particular safari theme or location, and there are two or three copies of each book. One book has 16" by 12" pages, the others are 12" by 12", and they're mostly lay-flat format so some photos can be spread over two pages. The photos printed in the books are not necessarily the best ones we took, but were chosen to fit a theme or a memory.

   Here are two of the covers.

 

 

 

 

   

[John M.]

   References in other forums to lesser sightings of side-striped jackals because they're more nocturnal reminded me of what I recall was our only encounter with the species. This was during our 2005 Selinda-Kwando safari.

 

  

[John M.]

   We were fortunate to see the Selinda lionesses make simultaneous kills on our first day in 2005... a Common waterbuck in front of our vehicle and a Red lechwe off to our left. This was probably the best of the several photos we got of the action, much of which occurred in reeds and other wetland growth.

 

   When we returned to Selinda Reserve after Kwando Lagoon, we found the wild dogs had moved to a new den.  I've only just unearthed these shots of an alert babysitter with some of the pups.

 

 

 

[Atravelynn]

Thanks for sharing the trip down memory lane for all to enjoy.

[John M.]

5 hours ago, Atravelynn said:

Thanks for sharing the trip down memory lane for all to enjoy.

There is so much to remember, to enjoy and to share.

[John M.]

   I'm prompted to add some cheetah photos after seeing the lovely cheetah cub images in the @janzin Botswana trip report, and the sad revelation by @madaboutcheetah that the mother had lost one of her offspring to a hyena.

   Cheetah mums certainly have a hard life. In Kenya, I watched one trying to chase vultures away from her kill while her three cubs were trying to feed. Then in Botswana in 2005, we followed a female who had successfully raised two cubs patiently teaching them to hunt. At times, the adolescents seemed more interested in playing, like some teens the world over.

   These photos were taken by Yvonne.

 

 

 

[madaboutcheetah]

@John M. - Is that Jane the cheetah ?  I think I last saw her in approx 2008 ..... 

[John M.]

1 hour ago, madaboutcheetah said:

@John M. - Is that Jane the cheetah ?  I think I last saw her in approx 2008 ..... 

   Yes, that was Jade. We saw her in 2002, 2004 and 2005. A very successful girl.

   On reflection, the tiny cubs we saw with her in 2004 were probably the two who featured in these pics a year later.

Edited February 1 by John M.
Extra info

[John M.]

    Safaris can be entertaining in many different ways, especially for those of us with a weird sense of humour. 

 

"Worth a try?"  "Nah, too big"

 

   "Which of you kids did this!?"

 

[ElenaH]

beautiful photos!

[John M.]

@ElenaHThanks😊

[John M.]

    I wonder if I've paid enough attention to elephants in this chapter.  My reason?  On reflection, elephant sightings on the Selinda spillway were so numerous that they probably afforded us the greatest variety of photo ops of any of the area's wonderful wildlife.

   Earlier, I posted two very contrasting images of elephants on the waterway.  From the many shots in our files, here are two more, also contrasting but taken within a short period at the end of a thirsty day.  The second deliberately makes the dust work for the photographer, to help illustrate the contrast between the spillway and its surrounds.

 

[wilddog]

Lovely contrast. The latter image is very atmospheric

[John M.]

16 hours ago, wilddog said:

Lovely contrast. The latter image is very atmospheric

   

   Sometimes you can be lucky and get the story in one shot. Publishers love economical material