Today I'd like to share some of my favourite photos from the Maasai Mara. Most of these photos come from the Mara Naboisho Conservancy, although I also took a couple from the bordering national reserve. As I mentioned in my last post, there are no fences between the national reserve and 8 conservancies, but rather animals are free to roam across borders, as well as in to neighbouring Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. This meant that nothing was certain and we would always get a surprise from our day's sightings. I'm still pretty new to the world of photography, with a LOT still to learn. I've raved about the Foto Frenzy photography course I did in mid-2014 to many. It's great to be able to focus on some of the techniques I learnt from Darren Jew, Sean Scott and the guys at Canon Collective. Enough of the waffle from me, here you go. I hope you enjoy browsing through.
One of the highlights of the trip was a walking safari with Roelof, one of the camp managers and expert guides at Naboisho Camp. As we tracked down the nearby elephants and got up close with some of the world's largest mammals, we also learnt more about the local ecosystem and the weird, whacky and remarkable things that live there. Of particular interest was Roelof's insight into the life of termites: did you know that termites have existed in the present form for more than 100 million years, collectively weigh more than twice the mass of us 7 billion humans, and have a queen that lays 20,000-odd eggs EVERY DAY.
Many find vultures ugly and scary. I find them pretty damned impressive, and beautiful in their own, unique way.
And it's going to become fairly clear that I like photographing lions. And there were a LOT of lions in the Mara. On the one morning alone, we were fortunate to come across 19 lions. The first group were challenged by a sole hyena; he was chased away pretty quickly (see below). Next came the mating advance on an adult female by three younger males; she was successful in fighting them off. This trio then went on to assert their dominance by chasing down three, even younger lions, which had the effect of sending every nearby mammal into a panic. It was 8am by this point, and what a start to the morning!
Buffalos just look angry. Cool, but angry. I wasn't sure if this 20-odd year old male was going to charge. But with headgear like this, I didn't really want to find out...
