Safari Parks
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Kwando river, Botswana
The world is like a book and those, who do not travel, only read the first page.
All rights reserved. © Thomas Retterath 2021
Shenzhen Safari Park is the first zoo in China to uncage animals. With green mountains to the north as its barrier, it is like a bright pearl in the bustling metropolis. Covering an area of 640,000 square meters (158 acres), there are more than 300 kinds of wild animals, in total 10,000 from all over the earth.
Passionate photographers ready to capture wildlife animals in their natural habitat from their safari vehicle. Shot with a Canon EOS 700D from a game reserve safari, nestled in the heart of the Little Karoo Western Cape province, South Africa.
Lion, (Panthera leo), large, powerfully built cat (family Felidae) that is second in size only to the tiger. The proverbial “king of beasts,” the lion has been one of the best-known wild animals since earliest times. Lions are most active at night and live in a variety of habitats but prefer grassland, savanna, dense scrub, and open woodland.
The male’s outstanding characteristic is his mane, which varies between different individuals and populations. It may be entirely lacking; it may fringe the face; or it may be full and shaggy, covering the back of the head, neck, and shoulders and continuing onto the throat and chest to join a fringe along the belly. In some lions the mane and fringe are very dark, almost black, giving the cat a majestic appearance. Manes make males look larger and may serve to intimidate rivals or impress prospective mates.
King Mpakasi, a young male lion in his prime, was photographed on a late evening game drive in the Nairobi National Park, Kenya.
A herd of wildebeest graze in the Maasai Mara before joining the great migration into the Serengeti. Note the safari vehicle in the background.
Angolasommerfuglefinke - Blue Waxbill - Uraeginthus angolensis, Temba Safari - Limpopo - South Africa
It's a real life motel hell ............... www.reviewjournal.com/local/local-las-vegas/downtown/mote...
Again shot from the safari truck at Port Lympne using an old 200mm manual lens. Shame about the ears being cropped!
Hmmmm, appeared on the flickr blog as a Niglai, totally wrong identification and tag by myself. Nevermind it's correct now, thanks to all the people that pointed it out.
In terms of car spotting the phrase “Out in the Wild” refers to finding/identifying a vehicle randomly out in the public rather than at an organized event.
Porsche 911 cars have actually competed in off-road competitions, using cars that have been specially modified for such. The one pictured above appears to be perhaps a support vehicle during those competitions, judging from the label “Misc. Crew” on the door. The article linked below discusses certain Porsches that are prepped for uses off of the pavement.
www.hagerty.com/media/motorsports/safari-porsche-911-conv...
The license plate has been altered for privacy.
A safari in the Serengeti National Park, February 2011, Tanzania - East Africa
(cc) David Berkowitz - www.twitter.com/dberkowitz - www.marketersstudio.com
This was taken on the day after we had reached our next camp, at the Sabora Tented Camp, adjacent to the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania.
This was a typical view from the edge of the main lodge, where we ate lunch each day ...
For more details about the camp, see singita.com/sabora-tented-camp/
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As I wrote in the notes for my October 2012 safari in South Africa, I have lived most of my adult life without ever venturing into the African jungle, and without participating in the mysterious activity known as “safari.” Thus, my impressions were based on a variety of movies -- ranging from Meryl Streep’s glorious Out of Africa (filmed near the starting point of this current trip, at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro) to The African Queen to the silliness of childhood Tarzan movies -- as well as photographs and visits to local zoos to see mangy animals who have no more first-hand experience with the continent than I had.
Actually, I have made a few visits to Africa over the years — even before that first safari trip a couple years ago. I’m not sure that my two visits to Egypt count in this regard -- but I did travel to South Africa in the early 1990s, to speak at computer conferences in Johannesburg and Cape Town. The last visit was made shortly before the release of Nelson Mandela, when the entire country waited for a fundamental transition, even though no one was sure what kind of future lay ahead of them. Hectic travel schedules, the demands of business, and the desire not to leave my family stranded at home any longer than necessary, eliminated the casual thought of spending a week on safari on those early trips … and so, like several other potential trips (Easter Island, Machu Picchu, Patagonia, Antarctica, a river trip on the Amazon, etc.), it was simply added to my “bucket list.”
But in 2012, I had another opportunity to return to South Africa, for an abortive computer conference that took place in Cape Town. After 20 years, our children are grown and gone, and most of the hectic pressures of business have diminished; so my wife and I were able to set aside a week, and we visited two different safari lodges in the Kruger National Park of northern South Africa, just a few miles from the Mozambique border. If you’re interested, you can see the photos in this Flickr album; suffice it to say that it was impressive enough that we decided to come back for another safari, if we ever had the chance.
The “chance,” as it turns out, occurred in a quiet two-week period of August 2014; and this second safari involved brief stays in five small camps located in northern Tanzania and southern Kenya. As I noted after our first safari, we could have gone to Botswana or Zaire or Zimbabwe or a dozen other countries; even without South Africa or Tanzania, there were dozens of different parks, game reserves, lodges, and camps that we could have chosen. (A brief bit of history, in case you’re interested: Tanzania used to be Tanganyika, and before that it was German East Africa; in 1964, it combined with the island-state of Zanzibar to become the Republic of Tanzania. You can read more details in this Wikipedia article).
As with our previous trip, we saw such an amazing variety of animals that I can scarcely remember them all. People at each new camp that we visited kept asking if we had seen the “big five”: lions, leopards, cheetahs, rhinos, and elephants. To which the answer, after the first one or two camps, was simply yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes. We also saw zebras (millions, or so it seemed), giraffes, ostriches, wildebeest (gazillions of the shaggy beasts), warthogs, crocodiles, hyenas,jackals, babboons, monkeys, and vast herds of antelopes (which included kudu and impalas and topi and Thompson gazelles and dic-dic antelopes, and goodness knows what else). I didn’t even try to keep track of all the birds we saw; vultures, eagles, and hawks were everywhere, but there were many others that I had never seen or heard of before, and which I’ll probably never see again back in the urban jungle of New York City.
As we had seen on our earlier 2012 trip, some of these species were quite compatible and nonchalant about being in each others’ presence; but there was no question that predators were everywhere, and that there was a constant struggle between the hunters and the hunted. Indeed, it was somewhat surprising to see how many thousands of antelope and wildebeest and zebras managed to evade the constant danger of lions, leopards, and cheetahs (which turn out to be at the bottom of the “pecking order” of predators); but it gradually became clear that hackneyed phrases like “survival of the fittest” actually do mean something out here. Yes, the older animals, and the weak and lame and very young, are quite vulnerable — and they generally don’t survive very long. But lots more do survive by being constantly alert, constantly sniffing the breeze, and constantly listening for warning sounds from nearby birds, monkeys, and members of their own herd.
We saw a few indications of a “kill” that had recently taken place: a pride of lions ripping away at the flesh of a recently-killed wildebeest; a jaguar that had dragged a recently-killed warthog up into a tree for safekeeping, while hyenas and jackals frantically leapt and jumped in a vain attempt to get up the tree themselves — along with the occasional skeletons and bleached-white bones of animals killed a season or two ago.
We had several hours each day to observe all of this, and I took roughly three thousand photos by the end of the trip. I’ve uploaded a relatively small number of “keepers" to this Flickr album, which will convey at least a little of what it’s like to actually be in the presence of so many animals. But to truly appreciate it, you’ve got to be there, in person.
The only caution I’ll add is that your return trip should avoid Nairobi if at all possible. The chaos and confusion in the Nairobi airport, on the day of our return, is a story unto itself … but I took no photos there, so you’ll just have to use your imagination.v