Category Archives: Travel

The next morning we head off for our (in my case, at least) long-awaited session at The Scavenger’s Hill Hide. As the name suggests, this is designed to attract the reserve’s less glamourous occupants, those who depend on the kills of others. The hide is designed with two large metal grills just below our sight line, under which the staff have trapped meat and offal which can be clawed or pecked to extract chunks of food.

We arrive just before dawn, but the sky is lightening well before there’s any activity. As this is not typical we wonder for a while if there’s been some mistake, such as no food being put out, but after a while things get going, albeit slowly.

First to arrive are a few pied crows, followed soon by a Marabou stork. This scruffy fellow is much larger than the other birds, and it quickly becomes apparent that he’s a real bully. He could easily monopolise one of the grills and leave the other to the smaller birds, but instead he seems to want total control of both, hopping between them to scare off any bird who has dared to try his luck at the opposite grill. As a serious peck from his long, sharp beak would be fatal for a smaller bird, the others put up with this behaviour, but instead play a game of hopping to the other grill each time he moves.

Things really get going with the arrival of the white-backed vultures. While not conventionally pretty – none is going to win a beauty contest with a lilac-breasted roller – I think they have their own sort of elegance, with a majestic cloak of feathers.

Static appearance aside, the vultures also entertain with a variety of behaviours. There is a very real and literal "pecking order" at the hide. Top is the marabou stork, courtesy of its size and bullying behaviour. Next are a handful of the vultures who get prime access to the grills, and only have to dramatically spread their wings to get others to back down.

Then there’s the jostling between the other groups, which regularly results in one hopping into the air to drive his rivals away. Finally there are the crows, who readily give way to the vultures although one or two are occasionally prepared to retaliate. In reality they feed mainly by waiting for a squabble between larger birds and then stealing the prize during the confusion.

Even though activity tails off well before we’re collected, there’s arguably more "action" in the peak hour or so than we’ve seen over the rest of the week. The early morning golden light is wonderful, and the subject suits my style and equipment, benefitting from the extra reach and depth of field I get with micro four-thirds. We’re also helped by the somewhat lower than usual attendance: the common complaint about the scavenger hide is that the field is too crowded making subject separation a challenge, we don’t seem to have that issue.

A thoroughly excellent experience.

With our search for elephants still not fully resolved, and Frances confirming she wants me to come back with evidence of at least one baby elephant, we give Tyrone a fairly straightforward directive for the morning game drive: "find us some more elephants". We set out towards the south-west of the reserve, where the elephants are known to congregate, cross the river and drive to a reservoir in that corner.

A road runs along the top of the dam which forms the reservoir, providing views of both the far shore, and the scrubland below the dam. The shore is bathed in wonderful warm early morning light, and I abandon my long lenses to make a panorama, "Absence of Elephant". (Although, as any scientist or detective knows, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence…)

So far we have little evidence of elephants, although there is some activity hidden in the scrub below the dam, with an occasional trumpet or fleeting glimpse of a trunk reaching up through the trees, but not what we came for. However a couple of giraffes wander along the shore, reflected in the water, providing an unexpectedly graceful subject.

An eagle-eyed member of my group spots some elephantine movement on the far hillside, followed quickly by confirmation from another vehicle which has a different angle. A group of elephants are headed down the hill. We quickly move back up the track and get some shots of the group moving along the path, followed by them crossing the track just in front of our vehicles.

The group consists of about three older females, a juvenile, and a baby estimated to be about 4 months old. As our drivers carefully manoeuvre the vehicles to extend the interaction the baby expresses his puzzlement by giving one of the jeeps a playful nudge. Anyone old enough to remember the famous "Blue Peter" scene with John Noakes and a baby elephant will know how firm such a nudge can be!

The guides need to train the elephants out of such behaviour, so baby is recipient of a series of "bad dog" shouts and gestures. These in turn upset Mum, who approaches our jeep, but when the appropriate gesture is made she immediately calms down, so clearly the training sticks fairly readily.

The group moves away, but not before I’ve managed to get a couple of nice portraits of mother and baby. On our way back up the hill we watch a large bull who have also emerged from the scrub and is happily engaged eating a large, spiky bush.

Elephants done. Tick.

For our afternoon drive we fancy something a bit different, and set out towards the main lake to do some hippo spotting. On the way we encounter a group of zebras who almost seem to be taking direction:

Our first encounter at the lake, ironically, is with the same bull elephant we observed in the morning, standing quietly on the road in front of us, plus we get occasional views of a mother and older juvenile below the track. Like buses, elephants. Grr.

At the lake we spend a bit of time observing the hippos. Although Zaminga has a substantial number of them the challenge, which I had not appreciated, is that hippos are actually more closely related to whales than the other pachyderms, and spend a lot of time not just in but also under the water. This helps protect their skin, which burns easily, and allows them to graze on underwater plants as well as those along the water’s edge, but it does make photography more tricky. However we do get shots of one having a splendid yawn.

Our drive back is slightly hair-raising, as Tyrone’s usual route back from that side of the lake is waterlogged thanks to the recent rains, and the jeep loses traction. As he tries to work it free the vehicle starts to cant sideways at an alarming angle. In an enclosed SUV, or even one of Zaminga’s regular vehicles, this would be less of an issue but we are in the "photo vehicle" designed to enable lower-level shots, and you sit "on" rather than "in" it, with little to hold on to. Eventually we manage to reverse out and take the long way round, but not without a bit of drama.

We’re not expecting much from the remainder of the drive, but the best has arguably been left for last. As we’re driving past the cheetahs’ domain Ty spots a serval, a small but long-bodied wildcat about the same as a smaller domestic one. These animals are solitary, usually nocturnal, and actively avoid interaction with larger ones, so it’s extremely unusual to see one. We get a couple of shots of the serval moving, and then follow it to where it’s hiding from us.

We get a few more photos, but it’s evident that the animal knows it’s being hunted, doesn’t understand it’s just for images, and is finding it all quite stressful, so we leave it be and head back to the lodge, with an unexpected encounter under the belt.

Despite the short guest appearances on previous days, our hunt for elephants remains unfinished business. Zimanga has about 40, and it should in theory be relatively easy to find them, so that’s the initial focus of our morning game drive. We cross the river to the southern section of the reserve and find some evidence: broken trees and recent spoor on the road. After driving around for a bit we eventually see a large bull moving through the trees, and Tyrone manages to get ahead on a parallel route so that our paths cross in a large clearing. The elephant doesn’t want to hang around, but is happy to pass close to the jeep, so at least we get some good photos.

The search for a larger group, ideally with some youngsters, continues.

We abandon the hunt because a message comes in over the radio that the three male lions may be actively hunting. We hurry back across the reserve to the designated spot and find them. It’s very evident that the dominant male has eaten recently. The other two are less obviously full, and do seem to be following a group of wildebeest, but not with great urgency. The drive turns into a procession where the lions move a few yards up the track and then lie down for a bit. Then after a few minutes they rouse themselves to move a few yards more, and we follow until they need another rest.

There’s a brief flurry of excitement when two of the trio go off on a short side trip, and the other gets anxious until they are reunited. Initial nuzzling is supplemented by annoyed growling, but they quickly get back into their walk and rest routine.

In places the light is wonderful for portraits, but it’s not exactly edge of the seat stuff. Bloody cats…

On the way back to breakfast we see a variety of birds and herbivores. The afternoon and night are spent at the Tamboti hide, but to limited avail. Most of the night there’s no activity, plus as one of our party, who shall be nameless, snores like a jet taking off I get very little sleep.

Sod’s law, as I’m making a cup of coffee in the morning a rhino drops by, but by the time I’m at the front of the hide with camera ready he’s wandered off. Bugger!

The 4th day of our stay at Zimanga delivers where the previous day did not. We start with another game drive, again aiming to track down the reserve’s male lions. Almost immediately there’s a confirmed sighting, and we head to the specified location just as the sun rises and bathes the area in golden light. Zimanga has three relatively young males, brothers, the result of a swap for an older male to increase the pride’s genetic diversity. All three of these magnificent but still developing animals are present and correct.

That said, they don’t really deliver on the "bit more action". Ultimately, these are cats. Cats like lying down not doing much if they can get away with it, and the three males are obviously sufficiently relaxed and well fed that they don’t need to do much more. We get various shots of them lying down looking regal, and head off.

The alternative attraction is provided by the two male cheetahs. They have taken down a young zebra, and are busy stuffing as much of it as possible into themselves before leaving it to the scavengers. This is very much the "nature red in tooth and claw" bit of the safari.

What is interesting is the process reveals a surprising lack of problem-solving intelligence. The left flank and legs have been stripped, and the torso is already open. Both cheetahs are clearly very full, and you’d think that they would prioritise the high-value parts of what remains, before it’s time to leave the kill to others.

Nope, they crunch through the ribs to extract morsels of meat. They pick at the offal, before repeatedly remembering that they don’t like it. They work together to try and extract remaining fragments of meat on the left-hand flank. They don’t think of flipping the carcass over and eating the meat on its right side.

Once again I’m surprised by how relaxed cheetahs are around humans. Our guides allow us to get out of the jeeps and walk around, maintaining about a 3m minimum distance but not much more, and the cheetahs take little or no interest. Try that with a lion or tiger…

In the afternoon we visit the Lagoon Hide, a semi-submerged hide in the centre of a man-made lagoon, which is itself on one edge of a natural lake. This is an excellent location from which to observe water fowl. We watch various water fowl plodding around to find bits of food (although a small heron dives and takes a whole fish, which is impressive).

This one made me laugh. For some reason I’ve got the line "We’ll Walk Down the Avenue" from "Couple of Swells" going through my head…

Another good day’s shooting.

Day 3 dawns with a borderline white-out: thick mist filling the valley under heavy low cloud, and it appears to be even colder than the previous day. The drive is somewhat hairy, and also almost a wash-out: we find the cheetahs but they are asleep, and we find a small group of rhino, but they move away and clearly regard our jeep as an intrusion. Tyrone takes some time trying to find a reported male lion, but to no avail. One water buffalo is a bit more cooperative.

That’s about it for mammals. We fare slightly better with birds, getting good shots of several larger birds sitting in trees, but overall there’s not a great deal to show, emphasising just how much patience and luck contribute to wildlife photography.

Our afternoon and evening activity is another night hide session. No sooner are we settled in than it becomes apparent that this is the local avian dogging site. First a pair of Blacksmith Lapwings do a complex mirroring dance culminating in mating, and to make sure they do it again.

The Lapwings are replaced by a pair of small Three Banded Plovers, whose courtship ritual is less complex but completes with even more enthusiastic consummation. They fly away and, we think, return shortly for a second performance, but this ends with the appearance of a second male and a brief territorial squabble, so it’s also possible the lady is concurrently entertaining two suitors.

After that we are visited by a pair of Woolly-Necked Storks, who plod around for a bit, but if this is their courtship ritual it climaxes elsewhere.

About 10pm I am just getting off to sleep and Colin awakes me with the news that there’s an elephant near the hide. His night sight, honed by years of sailing, has spotted the large beast moving through the trees well beyond the reach of the hide’s lights. Eventually I tune in to where he is, and can follow by using my camera as essentially a night vision scope. Eventually he emerges from the trees, and I manage to get a couple of shots – handheld at 200mm and for 0.4s, using ISO 6400. It only works because elephants don’t move fast, and even so the hit rate is pretty low. My pics aren’t going to win any prizes, but after a slow evening they are still a reward in themselves, especially as that’s the last action of the night.

Maybe I need to channel my inner Peter Lik, produce a vast panorama entitled "Absence of Elephant" and see if someone will give me £4M for it.

And if you don’t understand the title of this piece, I suggest you Google both versions! Just use private browsing mode…

The afternoon of day 2 is spent at a hide officially called Bhejane, but in practice known to everyone as "The Bird Bath", because it attracts a wide variety of small birds who come to both eat the bird seed, and bathe.

However it’s not without its larger visitors. As we arrive we notice a much a full sized bull elephant loitering behind the hide. We get a couple of shots on the way in, and he does eventually wander past the hide window, but doesn’t stop to drink or pause long enough for photos.

Later in the afternoon we’re visited by a small group of warthogs, who do stop for a quick drink.

The real attraction, however, is dozens of small birds, of numerous colorful species, feeding, drinking and bathing. They are endlessly entertaining, and very photogenic.

About halfway through our session the available bird seed starts to run dry, so Lee thinks it would be a good idea to spread some more. However he manages to overdo it, so the ground looks suspiciously like it has severe dandruff, and some emergency gardening is called for. Fortunately no-one records this embarrassing event. Oh wait, I did!

Back to the birds… I’ve found a brilliant little app called Merlin Bird ID. You simply select a picture of a bird with approximate location, and it tells you the species and some supporting info. Just in case you thought I had magically become an ornithologist!

We head north to Zimanga, the first South African game reserve designed specifically for photographers. Located in KwaZulu Natal, not far south of the Mozambique border, this is a private game reserve of 7000 hectares (about 18000 acres), which is in turn part of a larger estate with sugar cane production. The name Zimanga was chosen to sound suitably African, but it’s also an anagram of "Amazing". We wait to see how well that’s justified

The rather boring more than 3 hour drive north from Durban is eased by our guide Mohammed filling us in on South African history and geography, and also by an unscheduled stop while they wrangle three enormous wind turbine blades across the highway.

Once we’re off the road it takes the best part of the 1/2 hour to drive across the reserve to the lodge. At a quick pre-lunch briefing we discover that Colin, John and I will be in the night hide, so after lunch and a quick freshen up we head out to the hide. Personally I could have done with being eased into the process a bit more, but to give each group a fair crack at each activity and location we don’t have that luxury.

The night hide is very well equipped with a kitchen, flushing toilet, beds, electricity and WiFi, as well as shooting chairs and tripods in front of an enormous glass window, fronting onto a watering hole just below our eye level. However despite all the concessions Zimanga makes to your comfort, sitting in the night hide is very boring. You have to be quiet, and can’t use screens or any other lights near the window.

Nothing happens for most of the night. A jackal walks through a couple of times but outside the range of the lights, and that’s about it. We fail miserably to follow the advice to sleep in shifts, and by the small hours we all doze off in the chairs. It’s quite possible that a unicorn visited the watering hole between 2 and 4 am and we all missed it.

Fortunately our patience is rewarded, and shortly after we wake up around 5 am the watering hole is visited by a very majestic water buffalo.

Dawn Game Drive 1

At 6 we’re collected by our guide Tyrone, for a dawn game drive. My first realisation is how badly I have underestimated the cold. Packing, my uppermost thought was "Africa" not "winter", and I was also thrown by the instruction to avoid bright colours, which eliminated most of my wardrobe. As a result I am woefully underdressed for the back of an open jeep in ambient temperature just above freezing.

All this is forgotten when Tyrone and the other guides converge on a pair of adult male cheetahs. The pair are brothers and live and work together. They are perfectly happy with humans watching on foot as long as we observe a safe minimum distance. They pose for us, play, groom each other and mark their territory in stunning dawn light, and many exposures are made.

After leaving the cheetahs each group takes a separate route back to the lodge. On the way we find buffalo, various birds, and a group of rhino with a youngster, who seem quite relaxed to have us come close in the jeep.

After an excellent breakfast we have the morning to ourselves for ablutions, image editing, and the chance to catch up on missed sleep.

After what seems like a long gap (including retirement and an operation) but was in fact only about 9 months, I’m back on my travels. This time I’m in South Africa, on safari. A group led by Lee Frost will be taking over Zimanga, a private game reserve north of Durban, for a week. If all goes according to plan we’ll see lots of different African wildlife, and come back with copious quantities of memory cards filled with stunning images. Fingers well and truly crossed.

One of the challenges of relatively short photographic trips is that it’s very easy to spend the first couple of days “coming up to speed” and getting back into the groove of taking varying and artistic but technically correct photos. Worst case you may find that you have forgotten how to drive your equipment, especially if some of it is relatively new to you, but it’s not uncommon to find that you are missing opportunities simply because you’re not seeing them and reacting quickly enough. Between some equipment changes, the technical challenges of wildlife  photography, and the fact that I had done very little photography over the winter, I felt this was a real risk for me.

We therefore decided that I should do a couple of “warm up” exercises in the weeks coming up to the trip. In terms of physical preparation I decided to invest in a second-hand Panasonic 100-400mm lens, for some extra reach, and swapped my old Panasonic GX8 for a used G9, to better accompany my G9ii main body and enable swapping backwards and forwards between the two bodies rather than constantly changing lenses. To make this work I also had to rethink bags, but found in my collection an old Lowepro shoulder bag which is comfortably large enough to hold the two bodies side by side.

So now all I had to do was check and familiarise myself with some new equipment, get used to a new way of working, and tune back in to photographing animals. Easy…

Shakedown 1 – Longleat

Frances came up with the brilliant idea of a day at Longleat, photographing their big cats, so I signed up for the “Big Cat Photography Experience”. This turned out to be a great kit shakedown (even the old model 100-400mm lens is brilliant as long as you haven’t accidentally switched stabilisation or autofocus off, GRR) and good for getting my eye in. I’m very pleased with some of the results, but may need to put some tape over the new lens’ controls.

As well as the requisite lions and tigers we also saw wolves, Bactrian camels and African cattle.

It has to be said that the Longleat staff were absolutely superb. The Big Cat Experience is limited to a handful of attendees, and in my case I had a whole seat row to myself so I could shoot out of both sides of the vehicle. The guide was both very knowledgeable about the animals, but also about the needs of photographers and was happy to reposition our vehicle, off road if necessary, to get the best shots. We were also able have the windows down to avoid internal reflections, not allowed if you’re driving yourself. Away from the big cats, the staff also went out of their way to make sure Frances was appropriately occupied on a tour of the house. 10/10.

Shakedown 2 – London Concours

Independent of my safari, we’d also booked to attend the London Concours, a supercar “show and tell” at the Honourable Artillery Company grounds in central London. As my “new to me” G9 hadn’t turned up before the Longleat trip, I decided to use the concours as a test bed for the G9, accompanied by the cheaper and smaller lenses which work both as my “social” kit and as spares for the larger lenses if any should fail on location.

The only issue was the inclement weather, but between showers I added Jaguars, Bulls and Prancing Horses to the score. No kit issues, but it reminded me that while the G9 may be less ultimately capable than the Mark II, it’s actually a nicer handling piece of kit, and not much of a compromise 90% or more of the time.

Shakedown 3 – The Hidden Forest

The trip finally arrives.

As is usual, I travelled out a day early so I could recover a bit before getting cracking. My flight out was fairly uneventful, but with some interesting contrasts. Heathrow T3 now has the integrated scanners, so you don’t have to take half your luggage out of your bags at security, but the process is anything but! It took about 20 minutes to process a queue of less than 10 people. My new metal hip didn’t set anything off, but the hanky & wipes in my trouser pocket did… By contrast in Johannesburg I had to collect and recheck my baggage (quick and painless), and then joined a security queue at least 100 long. I was prepared for a long wait, but the staff were very efficient and after no more than 15 minutes I was through the check into domestic departures. Heathrow take note…

After an excellent brunch of a Wagu burger and red ale at the “Airport Craft Brewery” (also 10/10), my second flight was also uneventful, but somehow managed to shave 25 minutes off a scheduled 1h10, so I had a bit of a wait while the taxi arrived. Eventually I arrived at the hotel in Ballito, and had dinner with the other early arrivals, Sue and Chris. Sue said we should try and find something to photograph on our first morning, and came up with the excellent suggestion of the local primate sanctuary, formerly “Monkeyland” but now the more elegant “Hidden Forest”.

Good choice. We had a guide who was not only friendly and knowledgeable but had the requisite eagle eyes to spot a tiny monkey up a tree 20m away, and got to see a number of species. With low light levels it was technically tricky, but I’m pleased with some of my results.

There was one sad little aspect. The Hidden Forest is a rescue sanctuary, populated mainly with monkeys and lemurs who have been rescued from the pet trade. One of these was a tiny capuchin monkey who followed us around the whole time, mewing like a cat and taking every opportunity to lie, submissive, in front of our group, waiting to be picked up and petted. He’s clearly an ex-pet who appreciates human company, but now he’s in the sanctuary that’s not allowed. Hopefully over time he’ll adjust and fit in with his fellow capuchins.

Tomorrow we’re off to Zimanga and the safari proper begins!