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Spotting Wildlife
Have you thought of joining one of our photographic workshops? I was walking out of the curio shop at Skukuza in the Kruger National Park the other day and without so much as a good morning or how do you a rather large and somewhat frayed woman asked in a slightly accusing voice, “ Where are the lions this morning? ” I presumed that what she wanted to know was if I had seen any lions and if so where. As it so happens I had been busy in the camp since dawn shooting chalets and things so I had not the foggiest idea where the lions were but it set me thinking about lions and the other members of the cat family. What is it about the large cats that make people so desperate to see them? So much so that our next-door neighbour in the Skukuza campground had kept records of his sightings of lion, leopard and cheetah for the past 17 years and he could tell you exactly where and when he saw which animal! And I include myself in all this as well. So enamoured are Pat (my wife) and I with these large cats that we decided to do a coffee table book about them – “ The Big Cats of MalaMala ”.  It was on one of our trips to MalaMala Game Reserve to shoot pictures for their brochures that we came up with the idea for the book. The sightings of the large cats, and in particular lion and leopard, are legendary so what better place to photograph these animals than MalaMala. Well so we thought. While we were given access to the entire reserve one of the few restrictions were that we were to keep away from the commercial operation. In other words, there was to be no contact with the guests and they were to have priority on sightings. So we really had to hone our tracking skills to find our own animals even though we could hear on the 2-way radio that the rangers and guests had already found something. So this is the first step in photographing any animal – finding them. It's all very well to drive around a game reserve in the hope that something will leap into view but we've found that in most cases animals tend to leap out of view! Just about all one's senses are needed to successfully “hunt” animals, for, after all, this is what we are doing – just not going in for the kill at the end. When using your sense of sight to find animals, be aware of shapes and colours that are not “normal” in the grass and trees. I picked up a leopard the other day in very thick bush by noticing the curve of its tail - the shape didn't fit in with the rest of the vegetation. The colours of animal too are a dead give away in spite of them being camouflaged. One just needs to be aware of the colours and patterns and they will leap out at you (excuse the pun). Tracks on dirt roads are also very helpful and many's the time that we did a u-turn when we found that we were heading in the opposite direction to a pride of lion or a leopard. Animals often use the road network in game reserves, no doubt because its far easier to move along a road that through the bush. Its quieter too – no twigs to snap or grass to rustle when you are creeping up on a very attentive duiker! The senses of sight, smell and hearing are generally very much better developed in wild animals than they are in man. For very good reason animals like ververt monkeys, baboon, bushbuck and impala keep a good lookout for predators and make it known to everyone if they spot one. Monkeys chatter frantically at the sight of a leopard, baboon bark and the antelope snort repeatedly, all the time watching the predator. Keep those windows wound down and the aircon off so that you can keep an ear open for these announcements of danger. And use your nose. A feint smell of honey could mean that a leopard scent marked the vegetation along side the road recently. Of course it could also mean that you are passing close to a wild beehive but we won't go into that! Wild dog are particularly smelly animals and this can be a dead give away while elephants have and “earthy” smell. Know the habitat types that individual animals prefer as this can also help locating them. Leopards love donga systems and dense bush. Cheetahs prefer open veld and you certainly won't find a bushbuck standing immobile on a rock on top of a koppie – riverine bush is much more their style. It pays to read up on this prior to visiting a game reserve.  In our Big Cats book we tried to bring out the character of the beast rather than just get a bunch of pretty pictures and illustrate behaviour. The big cats are so different from each other and then the individual animals within each species are also different – each animal seeming to have its own personality. One has the impression that lions are proud animals; the king of the jungle and all that you know… But after spending a year in the MalaMala bush, that not the impression we got. We found that they were the most disgusting, slovenly, lazy animals that we have come across. Just watch lions on a kill when next you get the opportunity. They gorge themselves to the extent that they can barely move they are so full. And no delicate, fastidious feeding; they are right in there, covered in blood, gore and rumen; snarling and snapping at each other and to hell with the cubs and weaker animals! It's everyone for him or herself. Compare this to the leopard that lifts its prey into a tree and then, after first plucking off some of the fur, proceeds to feed in a very dignified manner, leaving much of the carcass in the tree for tomorrow and the next day if there is enough. Or compare the lions to cheetah. To, say, the female cheetah with two sub adult cubs that we spent a few days with. After bringing down and impala she would call over her two youngsters before feeding on the animal herself. Try looking beyond simple portraits of animals when photographing them and try to show some of the animals character, whether it's a shy little blue duiker of a huge lumbering elephant. Each animal has its own character – try to bring this out. If there's something that you would like to read about in this column or questions you have , feel free to contact me on e-mail at info@africaimagery.com . I will try to get back to you but things sometimes get a little hectic around here so please forgive me if I don't. It will, though, help to give me an idea of what you want to know . |
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