Tiger: Rathambore Tiger Reserve, Rathambore National Park, Sawai Madhopur, India, March 2023 — I don’t know why it always surprises me but it always does when big cats behave just like house cats. Maybe it is really more amazing that house cats still behave so much like big cats. The “rub my tummy” move seems universal, though I am pretty sure no one, at lest no human, has ever rubbed the tummy of a Tiger when the tummy was on offer. Still. Cats will be cats. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixomator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 1250 @ f4 @ 1/500th.
Leopard: Murchinson Falls National Park, Uganda, August 2022 — There is a story about safari vehicle traffic jams and management of wildlife encounters around this photo, but patience and common sense paid off with a somewhat rare sighting of Leopard in the tall grass savanna of Murchinson Falls National Park. The safari vehicles were blocking the road between the Leopard and its prey, which was hung in a tree, so the Leopard was keeping well hidden in tall grass. Some effective negation on the part of driver/guide Moses, got all the vehicles moved out of the way so the cat could move…and we happened back by the spot just as it decided it was safe to do so. A very special encounter with a magnificent cat. Sony Rx10iv at 580mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 100 @ f4 @ 1/800th.
We spent an interesting morning at the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum on Thursday. The ASDM is one of my favorite places and certainly on of the few “zoos” I really like. The displays are excellent, with natural looking habitats, and of course it goes well beyond, as the name suggests, your ordinary Zoo. It covers the full Sonoran Desert experience… from plants and animals to geology.
So, while I do not generally like Zoo shots, I can not resist sharing this shot of a couple of Bobcats from the Cat Canyon display at the ASDM. It was taken through a window of thin vertical wires that forms one wall of the habitat…so thin that if you are close to the wires and the cats are a good distance behind them, they simply disappear in a photograph. It was a pleasure to catch these two bobcats interacting in the cool of the morning before they settled down for the day.
Sony RX10iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. Programed Auto with – 1/3rd EV exposure compensation. Spot focus and exposure. Processed in PhotoShop Express on my Android tablet.
Cat at the Aldrich House, Strawberry Banke, Portsmouth NH
My wife, Carol, and I celebrated our 32nd wedding anniversary yesterday with, among other things, a visit to Strawberry Banke Museum in Portsmouth NH. Strawberry Bank is a living history museum founded in 1958 to preserve the original settlement/neighborhood that became the city of Portsmouth. It contains several colonial homes, now renovated and furnished to look as they did in the settlement period, a Revolutionary War Tavern, a fully stocked World War 2 corner store, and examples of homes from eras right up through the 50s. Costumed Roleplayers are stationed in some of the homes, and uniformed interpreters in others…and there are daily demonstrations of household tasks and crafts. The grounds are lovely, mostly because of the preserved and restored lawn gardens…both ornamental and practical.
One of the homes there was actually already a museum when Strawberry Banke was founded. The Aldrich Home was the home of Thomas Baily Aldrich for a few years in his late teens, when he was sent to live with his grandfather. Thomas Baily Aldrich was a respected poet, novelist, and travel writer of the late 1800s, and editor of the Atlantic Monthly for 9 years. A contemporary and friend of Mark Twain and other respected writers of the time, after his death his wife (who Twain considered an “empty headed clothes horse”), bought his grandfather’s house and had it renovated to look like she envisioned it from Aldrich’s most famous book, The Story of a Bad Boy, which was set in and round that house. She got it mostly wrong…but she tried. The book itself, while not well known today, is often cited as a precursor to and an influence on Twain’s Huck Fin. To bring this long story to a close, among Mrs. Aldrich’s efforts is a formal memorial garden for her husband on the grounds…and this cat is a current resident of the garden. I could not resist trying the HDR Painting Picture Effect on the Sony HX90V on the cat, the lilies, and the fence. It is somehow very suitable for the house, the people, and the time. 🙂
Camera as above. Processed in Lightroom.