Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2014/03/24
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Ric, Leo, Luis, Geoff, Frank, Sonny, Alastair, Douglas, Craig, Philippe Thanks for looking. Philippe, it was all carried out in total silence except for the sounds of tree branches and twigs breaking - no trumpeting, etc. It was quite special, as thanks to it being Ndutu, where there are no restrictions on vehicular movement, we could follow the elephants around. We had very experienced drivers, who knew to a nicety how close you could get, because getting too close could have been very dangerous with two bulls in this rampaging mood. Luis, I shot at 200mm (it was a 200-400mm lens) because I was willing to crop a bit and not willing to have the action jump out of the frame if I was at 400mm. The D4 shone, though, this is what it is built for - the buffer behaved itself, and actually I have a fairly long sequence captured. Cheers Jayanand On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 6:30 AM, Douglas Barry <imra at iol.ie> wrote: > Fascinating! That was a privilege to witness. Just goes to show you that > the > Ukranians could have done with a few bull elephants :-) > > Like all the rest of the pics too - seems to have been a great trip. > > Douglas > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jayanand Govindaraj" > <jayanand at gmail.com> > To: "Leica Users Group" <lug at leica-users.org>; "PSM" > <psm-1857 at googlegroups.com> > Sent: Monday, March 24, 2014 7:40 PM > Subject: [Leica] Bullfight > > >> One of the rare and unusual sights that we were privileged to see on >> the trip to Ndutu was a serious dominance/territorial fight between >> two bull elephants. The whole episode took place around 1.00 pm, so >> the light was pretty hard. It took its time, with the two elephants, >> the older one with half a tusk, and the younger one with two long >> pristine tusks, facing each other, moving back and forth - I never >> knew elephants could move backwards before this, and with such >> complete surety at that! Suddenly, from time to time, one of them >> would turn to a tree close by and rip off and break a trunk on the >> tree: >> >> >> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/EAfrica/2014/Ndutu_20140309_1523.jpg.html >> >> At some point after a lot of posturing, the younger one gave himself a >> dust bath: >> >> >> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/EAfrica/2014/Ndutu_20140309_1536.jpg.html >> >> This seemed to infuriate the elder, who wasted no time in joining battle: >> >> >> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/EAfrica/2014/Ndutu_20140309_1540.jpg.html >> >> The fight was well and truly on, with the elder one using superior >> strategy, power and strength: >> >> >> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/EAfrica/2014/Ndutu_20140309_1546.jpg.html >> >> >> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/EAfrica/2014/Ndutu_20140309_1549.jpg.html >> >> >> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/EAfrica/2014/Ndutu_20140309_1554.jpg.html >> >> After a short and brutal fight, they disengaged: >> >> >> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/EAfrica/2014/Ndutu_20140309_1566.jpg.html >> >> It was obvious that the elder had carried the day. After some more >> posturing around a pond, the younger one lost his nerve and galloped >> away, chased by the elder till he thought that the lesson had been >> served. We were hoping that the winner would mount the loser, which is >> the way bull elephants exhibit dominance, but no such luck! >> >> Please see LARGE >> >> Comments and criticism, as ever, most welcome >> >> Cheers >> Jayanand >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Leica Users Group. >> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information >> > > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information