Posts in Category: action
Elephant Edition: early encounter
African Elephant: Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda, August 2022 — We were on our way early on the day we moved from Murchison Falls National Park to Kibale, since it would be our longest day on the road. Still we had the safari top up. We did not want to miss our last views of Murchison and its unique habitat and wildlife. We were not yet far from the lodge when we encounter this lone bull elephant feeding at its full reach from the lower branches of a big acacia tree. Lone bulls are likely to be older bulls ejected from the herd by younger rivals, but this one, from the size of the tusks, might be a young bull speaking greener pastures between herds. It was a great encounter and I have more photos to share. Sony Rx10iv at 32mm equivalent. (Gotta love the Sony’s 24-600mm zoom which makes a range of views available with a twist. In this situation I would have hated to be “stuck” with long wildlife lens on a conventional camera.) Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 200 @ f2.8 @ 1/500th.
Antelope edition: Oribi fawn
Oribi: Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda, August 2022 — Still on our way back from the tour boat on the Nile, we came to this mother and fawn Oribi beside the road into the lodge. I selectively focused on the fawn and had to sharpen the female more than I like, but it is still a good photo. Focus stacking would have been nice…but I checked my unprocessed images and in the few seconds I had, I did not get one with the female in selective focus. 🙁 Sony Rx10iv at 221mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 1000 @ f4 @ 1/500th.
Elephant edition: Two more.
African Elephant, Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda, August 2022 — A couple of other sots of the most cooperative, and most photogenic, of the elephants we encountered on our way back to the lodge from the Nile River Murchison Falls tour boat. You might think the Piapiac birds riding the elephant are like Oxpeckers…but they are quite different. Oxpeckers do not ride elephants because the elephant’s hide is too thick to host ticks…and too thick for the Oxpeckers to open wounds to attract other insects…which they do, for instance, on the tender hides of giraffes. The Piapiacs are strictly hunting from the handy perch of the elephant’s back…and are aided by the fact that the elephant moving through the grass stirs up a lot of insects. It is an opportunistic relationship as opposed to the symbiotic (or parasitic in the case of the giraffes) relationship of the Oxpeckers. 🙂 Sony Rx10iv at 351mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 1600 @ f4 @ 1/500th.
Abyssinian Ground Hornbill action
Abyssinian Ground Hornbill: Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda, August 2022 — There was more than one group of Abyssinian Ground Hornbills near the Hippo Pools at Murchison Falls National Park when we visited in August. I thought at first that I was seeing a female and a chick…with some begging going on, but looking at the photos both female birds appear to be full grown adults, and I took the picture of the two males walking in a line only a few yards away, so this is more likely two pairs, and the females are just having a little spat. 🙂 Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 100 @ f4 @ 1/800th and 1/1000th.
Wildlife edition: The placid side of Hippos
This is a more typical “action” shot of Hippocampus. The youngster here is yawning. A frequent behavior and often photographed as it is about as much action as you are likely to see in a bloat of hippos at mid-day. When an adult does it, with the full grown tusks, it is, of course, much more impressive. 🙂 Again, these hippos will send the daylight hours hiding from the sun in the shallows, kneeling on the bottom to keep as much of their skin underwater as possible, and taking frequent dips to completely submerge. This bloat (or school, or pod) was along the shores of the Victoria Nile between its junction with the Albert and Murchison Falls in Murchison Falls National Park…taken from the tour boat to the base of the falls. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 160 @ f4 @ 1/500th.
Hippo edition: Fight!
Hippopotamuses live, you might think, fairly placid lives…grazing during the hours of darkness, sometimes wandering miles from water, and spending the days kneeling in the shallows of lakes and larger rivers to protect their somewhat delicate hides from the equatorial sun. Plaid, except when they aren’t! This is mock battle between two (probably young) males at the edge of one of the big bloats of hippos that we saw from the tour boat on the Nile below Murchison Falls, in Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda. “Bloat”, “crash”, “school”, or “pod”…all are used to describe a group of hippos. Our guide on the boat called them schools…but bloat is, according to internet sources, the more common and perhaps more correct term. I have heard it said that more people are killed by hippos each year, than by all of the big five taken together. Anywhere between a hippo and the water is a very dangerous place to be. You definitely do not want to be bitten by a hippo, as it only takes one bite. Still, the impression of a placid life is probably correct, 90% of the time. These two quickly settled back into the water once whatever point needed making was made to their satisfaction. Sony Rx10iv at 164mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed (cropped and enlarged) in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 100 @ f4 @ 1/800th.
Feline edition: Leopard!
Leopard: Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda, August 2022 — I posted one shot from this sequence a while ago, but now, working through the Uganda photos in order, I come back to it. 🙂 I also told the story of the traffic jam of safari vehicles that had blocked the road and overflowed into the savannah on either side trying to see this Leopard hiding in tall grass, waiting for a safe opportunity to cross the road to get to its kill, which was hanging in a tree on the other side. There were well over a dozen vehicles, jammed in every which-way, bumper to bumper, back to front, like a crazy puzzle. Our guide walked the length of the jam talking to the other drivers and convinced them that no one was going to see the cat while all those land cruisers and vans were blocking its path, and we slowly untangled the mass of vehicles and moved off. We just happened be coming back to get to another road when the cat finally decided to get up and move. It was still trying go get around us to it’s prey, so, though we only stopped for a moment to see it, we got to watch as it stalked through the tall grasses parallel to the road. Wonderful indeed. Sony Rx10iv at 580mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 100 @ f4 @ 1/1000th.
Bonus pic for today! White Rhino
Bonus pic for today! I promise that no little old ladies (or Rhinos) were harmed in the making of this photo 🙂 The lady is actually much closer to me than she is to the White Rhinoceros at the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary in Uganda. It happens that this is the only shot I have of an adult Rhino with its head up. At Ziwa the business of Rhinos is eating and groaning and reproducing…with time out for raising young. That’s all they have to do, as they are guarded day and night by armed rangers. So in most photos the Rhinos are very busy with their heads down grazing in the tall grass. 🙂 Such is life in the protected species lane. Ziwa now has 30 of the 50 Rhinos that the Sanctuary can support, and they are looking forward to releasing their first White Rhinos back to the wild in just a few years. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 1000 @ f4 @ 1/500th.
Leopard!
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.
White Pelicans in Ohio!
White Pelican: Magee Marsh Boardwalk, Oak Harbor, Ohio, USA, May 2022 — Maybe it is just me, but I don’t immediately think of White Pelicans when I think of Ohio. Considering the long shoreline of Lake Erie, maybe I should, but I don’t. So I was surprised to look up from the boardwalk at Magee and see a large flock of them coming overhead. I even managed to get my camera up in time. 🙂 I happened to be with a “local” at the time, and she assured me that they are common along the Erie shore, and had already been in Ohio for more than a month at that point during the Biggest Week in American Birding in mid-May. Who knew? Sony Rx10iv at 526mm equivalent. Program mode with my “birds-in-flight” modifications (I have BIF programed into the AEL button, so I just swung the camera up, pressed the AEL button, zoomed out a bit to frame a section of the flock, and shot.) Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 100 @ f5 @ 1/1000th. + .7 EV for the backlight.