Sunday, June 10, 2012

Leopard, and more leopard, December 2011






       By Squack Evans




During the course of 12 days or so, we travelled through Manyara having some phenomenal elephant viewing at close quarters..... some of the best I have had in Manyara for some time.


Following on from there, we went to Ngorongoro and on to Moru kopjies.



We had a lot of rain so were a little bit constrained due to mud, in some areas. However, we had phenomenal sightings. The leopard viewing started here and we saw, in one morning, 3 leopards. One at a distance had just killed and climbed a tree with a dikdik. We managed to find one of the resident lion prides as well as a Black Rhino.


We moved on to the northern Serengeti and the leopard sightings continued in earnest! A mother and adolescent cub with an oribi kill giving us some amazing shows. The cub had attitude; with a snarl and a hiss almost on the end of my camera lens and then it hopped up on to the bull bar of the car.


The next day we found the mother again hunting and climbing trees in the heat of the afternoon. In the evening, she had moved some distance again and gave a phenomenal modelling shoot!


Lions were plentiful as was other game and, being slightly out of season, there were very few other cars out and about.


Our send off at the end was 4 Black Rhino and some interesting interaction as it appeared that a female in the group was in season. Great trip..... and the leopard stole the show.

1 comment:

  1. great shots of the leopards, Squack. Still waiting to spot one in decent light and distance. Did you see any leopard in Manyara too?

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