Bush Buck, Shrike and Motion Workshop

The very shy bush buck.

Magpie shrike

Hippos

A lovely dusky acraea butterfly.

A tree knocked over by elephants.

An impala leaping across the road.

A Marshall eagle and a fish eagle.

A dwarf mongoose trying to cross the road.

A ground squirrel resting.

Kirsten in focus with blurred background...

and Kirsten blurred and background in focus.

Wednesday, May 3^rd.

It was pretty quiet this morning on our early drive. We saw some bush buck, which we had not seen yet, a few birds (the magpie shrike) and raptors which we all enjoy trying to photograph. We saw a Marshall eagle and a fish eagle circling each other and interacting probably in a territorial way. After our coffee break, we saw a couple of hippos, some impala, and a couple of elephants on the way back. After lunch we had a very interesting workshop on motion in photography. I learned how to take a photo where the background is in focus and the person running in the foreground is out of focus; and then panning with the runner to keep her in focus and making the background blur. It was fun and I learned some more about the camera settings. Then we were off on our afternoon drive focusing on motion photography. The drive was uneventful for a couple of hours with little to try our new skills with other than a few impala, running across the road. When we were about to turn back to the camp, we got a call from another truck telling us of a sighting of buffalo. Chulu raced towards the spot, but it was getting towards dusk and with black buffalo photography was difficult. After a bit they wandered off into the bush and we moved on, but shortly after found ourselves surrounded by a herd of elephants. We were in the open truck which felt a bit more vulnerable. A couple of the younger elephants took an interest in us and tried to chase us off, but Chulu had the car turned off and just quietly talked to them to reassure them. We stayed there for about twenty minutes with them coming at us a bit but then stopping indecisively. I got some good videos of this action. Finally, they seemed to lose interest and walked off the road at which point we backed up and left, only to come across the buffalo herd again. We waited for them to cross the road before we managed to drive back to camp just in time for loadshedding and t-bone steak night. The meal was good as usual and Bruce and I talked with Matt, Daisy and the new guide Heidi. Back to the room to sleep just as the power was coming on again.