nThambo Tree Camp Day 4 - Another Day in Paradise

Day 4 at nThambo Tree Camp was another stunning day with superb winter weather (cool in the  morning and warm in the afternoon) Bother game drives produced some wonderful sightings. The morning began with yet another beautiful South African Sunrise  - the sunrises and sunsets here in southern Africa are remarkably orange relative to what a comparably clear sky in Texas produces. It seems that a greater presence of dust in the upper atmosphere here (potentially blown by winds from the Namib desert to the west) give this special color without the presence of clouds.

Elephants were the early highlight of the day as we were privileged to witness a relaxed breeding heard come down to  the waterhole to get a drink. The early light and their imposing presence made their visit all the more special  - I always love watching elephants manipulate their trunks in interesting ways and this encounter did not disappoint.  

 

We also got to visit with two of the most "prehistoric" looking creatures of the Klaserie Game Reserve - I'll leave you to decide which is your choice for "Most Prehistoric". 

 

As is always the case on came drives, there is the tension between predators and prey. The tiny steenbok (left) and impala (right) are always on alert and ready to alarm call and flee at a moments notice when any hint of hyena or lions crosses their sensory radar. 

 

 

I feel truly privileged to get to have and share this amazing experience in a truly magical place with you. While I am always a little disappointed when a game drive comes to an end, it's hard to stay that way when presented with a another glorious sunset! 

2013 Blue Lion Year in Review- Part 5 of 6

Welcome to PART 5 of my 2013 review! This post will take us down from #5 in the countdown to #2 - My image of the year will be unveiled tomorrow here on the Blue Lion Blog! 

For this year’s review, I have selected 30 images that represent a combination of my personal favorite shots as well as my most widely viewed images on my website (http://www.bluelionphotos.com), social media such as my Facebook page and my Twitter account (@BlueLionPhotos).

 I hope you enjoy this journey through my photographic year – I welcome your comments below as I savor getting to know how my images impact you the viewer! Each of the images is viewable and available for purchase by clicking on the image here, which will take you to my website. 

If you missed earlier posts in this retrospective series just click the links below! 

PART 1     ~     PART 2     ~    PART 3     ~     PART 4

ONWARD! 

#5 ~ Leopard Stare ~ Ngala Game Reserve, South Africa

#4 ~ Cheetah Portrait ~ Ngala Game Reserve, South Africa

#3 ~ Lilac Breasted Roller ~ Ngala Game Reserve, South Africa

#2 ~ Waterhole Sunrise ~ Ngala Game Reserve, South Africa

ON SAFARI - DAY 2

Welcome back to the Blue Lion Blog for the next installment of my “Safari Series” which details my visit to the Ngala Safari Lodge in South Africa in July, 2013.

This entry focuses on the animals I photographed on day two of my visit. After being lucky enough to see a Verreaux’s Eagle Owl the previous afternoon, I was again lucky to see another at a distance in the dawn light. It made a nice silhouette against the rosy-fingered African dawn.  

As the sun rose, we encountered a breeding herd of giraffes. The young seemed odd to me as they obviously had yet to grow their necks to the wonderfully ridiculous length we are all used to. The second image here features a bird known as an oxpecker working to remove small insects and ticks from the hide of this adult giraffe. 

   

From one of the largest of the African animals, we drove on to discover the smallest of Africa’s carnivores – the Dwarf Mongoose. These adorable little fellas live in matriarchal colonies centered on abandoned termite mounds that they use for shelter and as lookout posts. 

This next sighting was a great thrill for me as it was my very first wild cheetah sighting of my three safaris! This female was moving from termite mound to termite mound in hopes of scanning the surrounding area for potential prey. Since it was getting later in the morning, she was not having much luck. However, it did provide the chance for her to pose for me as if she was a feline supermodel! 

  

To make the day complete, during our afternoon drive, we came across a pride of four lions – an adult lioness and her three young offspring (two females and a male) as they were stalking a herd of impala. The images of this pride show how well these tawny colored lions can be camouflaged against the winter grasses in South Africa. Despite their best efforts, the impala were able to spot them before the lions could sneak close enough to launch an attack. While the lions have a great deal of stealth, they are unsuccessful in the vast majority (approx. 80%) of their hunting attempts. 

The day concluded with a brilliant sunset and a ride back to the lodge in the dark using a bright spotlight to alter us to the presence of nocturnal animals. We were lucky to catch brief glimpses of more mongooses, some bush babies, and a small nocturnal cat called a serval. 

A delicious meal in the boma followed by local tribal singing and dancing rounded out the evening before bed called my name as the African morning comes awfully early at 5:00 am the next morning!  

Kaikoura Skies: A natural fireworks show!

During my 2009 visit to the South Island of New Zealand I had the great pleasure to spend time in the fishing town of Kaikoura on the northeast coast. Kaikoura is a very unique place in the world as it has vistas of the ocean and snow capped mountains from the shore. During my short visit there I was able to see sperm whales, huge "crayfish" (what we in the United States call spiny lobsters), fur seals, and some of the most amazing dawn & dusk skies I've ever seen!

As part of the Skywatch Friday and Scenic Sunday memes, I'm sharing two of my favorites image from Kaikoura.

The first image is a dawn image looking out toward the Pacific Ocean from the rocky beach.

Kaikoura Dawn

The second image comes from the same beach and is a shot that I had missed the previous morning so I set up to get it at just the right moment as the sun burst above the horizon and between the craggy rocks.

Starburst

Click in either image to see it in the original gallery

"Remarkable" Dawn

Today's post is of dawn over the Remarkables mountain range just outside of Queenstown New Zealand. The image was taken on my last morning in Queenstown and came after a rather sleepless night as we had just experienced the effects of the word's strongest earthquake of 2009.

The night before, I was in bed in my hotel just before 8:30 pm (had to be up well before dawn to get this shot you see here!) and heard the glassware in the mini bar start to jingle and then the bed started to quiver ( the bed was NOT equipped with "Magic Fingers"!). I realized we were having an earthquake and stood in the door as "protection". I was on the 4th floor of my hotel and could definitely feel the building swaying. I remember thinking the whole building was going to collapse. Was I better off to be up that high or to try to so down the stairs to the street? I recall not liking the results of either scenario! Of course the quake did not last long ( about 70 seconds by most accounts). The quake epicenter was centered about 136 miles from my hotel and was later determined to be a 7.8 on the Richter Scale followed by a 6.1 aftershock. Because of my distance from the epicenter it was estimated that Queenstown experienced the equivalent of a 5.8 quake. Still pretty scary I have to say!  Thankfully there was minimal damage caused by this quake because the southern tip of NZ's South Island is sparsely populated and the building codes there are superb  due to the natural seismic activity there. HERE is the BBC's reporting of this earthquake.


The next morning was a cold, crisp morning and we headed out to the shores of Lake Wakatipu to set up in the predawn for what we hoped would be a brilliant sunrise. The earliest light did not have much in the sky to work with, but the clouds you see were nice enough to drift in and color up nicely to give this rosy warm glow right over the Remarkables.After happily shooting this scene, we headed further north to spend a few days near Aoraki/Mt. Cook to photograph New Zealand's tallest peak. Click HERE to see my recent post of LAST LIGHT on that magnificent peak.

Rosy Fingered Dawn Over the Remarkables

Lake Wakatipu, New Zealand

Click in the image to see it in the original gallery.

Enjoy more great images by visiting SKYWATCH FRIDAY and SCENIC SUNDAY!

Photo of the Year 2010 (Part 3 - The Winner!)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Greetings to all of you This New Year's Day! Here on 1/1/11 I am announcing the Photo of the Year for 2010 at Bluelionphotos.com. This year's Photo of the Year took me by surprise as it received a lot of attention early in the year before my blog and Facebook fan page were up and running. As such, most of you may not have seen this image though the channels I have developed over the course of 2010.

Click in the image to see it in its original gallery.

This photograph is titled "Morning in Middle Earth". I took this photograph when I was visiting Milford Sound, New Zealand on July 17, 2009. We had a lousy morning for shooting as it was lightly raining (look for raindrops on the surface of the water). The whole scene had a very grey look in the predawn and we thought it was going to be a total bust. Unfortunately, we only had this one morning to "get the shot" as we were headed back out to Queenstown later that day. As is often the case in photography, our patience paid off with a momentary breaking up of the clouds and the "pinking up" of the cloud that has settled over the top of Mitre Peak.


While I missed out getting the iconic shot of this New Zealand landmark, I have an image that I like much more than a simple "postcard" shot that a thousand others have captured. As for the title, the more I looked at this image, I could not help but feel like Frodo, Sam and the Lord of the Rings gang could have been traveling along these shores during their extended adventures in Middle Earth.


Thanks to all of you who have followed Blue Lion Photos through this past year and offered your thoughts, ideas, and support. I am looking forward to an exciting 2011 as we continue this photographic odyssey together!

Cheers & wishes for a great 2011!

John

SUNBURST

SUNBURST!

This week's Photo of the Week was a runaway winner with more than double the views of any other Blue Lion Photo. I took this photo at just after dawn on the second to last day I was in New Zealand. We were in the beautifully quaint fishing village of Kaikoura on the NE coast of the South Island. We had visited the same site the morning before and I saw the potential for this shot as the sun rose over the jagged rocks at the shore, but I had missed the timing. Determined not to get skunked twice on the shot, we returned the following morning and were treated to a great predawn color show as the rising sun colored the clouds magnificently. Once the sun was partially above the horizon, I took my spot and waited for the magical moment when I could get capture the sunburst view you see here. amazingly enough, the sun remained in the critical position for less than a minute. Timing is indeed everything!

Click in the image to see a higher resolution version

View other Skywatch Friday Entries

Cheers!

John

Photo of the Week September 5-11

This week's Photo of  the Week was taken on the wild west coast of the South Island of New Zealand on my 2009 trip to that fascinating land. The day after visiting the Pancake Rocks at Punakaki, we had a dawn hike up to Truman Beach for shoot over the tide pools and the Tasman Sea. The "beach" at Truman was great as it was a combination of a rocky inter-tidal beach and a more familiar fine grained sand beach. As with most of our trip, we had great weather that morning. We captured a rosy dawn on the horizon and a bright moon higher in the sky. The rich, deep blues of the early light mixes with dawn's rosy fingers and the textures of the Truman shoreline really make for a rather otherworldly setting. I am very happy I was in the right place at the right time to get such a special shot. The credit for getting me to that place & time goes to Phillip Bartlett, my wonderful guide on that trip. As I have stated before, he was a superb guide and anyone wanting to visit and photograph NZ should look him up through his web site at Capture New Zealand Tours . 

Enjoy your short visit to Truman Beach ...........

Click on the image  to see a higher resolution image...