[Leica] Rare Sightings

[jayanand at gmail.com (Jayanand Govindaraj)]

Nathan & Cheeta,
Thanks for looking!
Cheers
Jayanand


On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 10:39 AM, Nathan Wajsman <photo at 
frozenlight.eu>wrote:

> Cheeta and I both loved the wild dogs!
>
> Cheers,
> Nathan
>
> Nathan Wajsman
> Alicante, Spain
> http://www.frozenlight.eu
> http://www.greatpix.eu
> PICTURE OF THE WEEK: http://www.fotocycle.dk/paws
> Blog: http://nathansmusings.wordpress.com/
>
> YNWA
>
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>
>
> On Mar 29, 2014, at 7:02 PM, Jayanand Govindaraj wrote:
>
> > We saw some rare sightings in Ndutu - to the ones under can be added
> > a rare White-headed Vulture, but I was not in the vehicle that saw the
> > bird. The first was the Serval, a small cat, not a rare animal but
> > difficult to see, with a quite beautiful coat. This one kept running
> > away, so we got no shots of it particularly close. This is probably a
> > 15% crop of a D4 frame:
> >
> >
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/EAfrica/2014/Ndutu_20120107_0231.jpg.html
> >
> > The Ratel, or Honey Badger is again not a rare animal, but this was
> > the first trip on which  I saw one. They are closer related to weasels
> > than badgers, and like other members of that family have a reputation
> > of being totally tough and fearless, and of never letting go of
> > anything they get between their jaws. One luckily came fairly close
> > and kept a bit still for us to get some shots off:
> >
> >
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/EAfrica/2014/Ndutu_20140312_3257.jpg.html
> >
> > The high point of the trip for me, at least, was the tracking down of
> > probably (not sure, though) the only pack of African Wild Dogs in the
> > Serengeti ecosystem - I know for certain that there are none in Masai
> > Mara. Distemper had practically wiped out all the dogs a few decades
> > ago from this whole area, and it was really amazing to see them making
> > a comeback. There was a reported sighting one day, and both our
> > drivers joined up with another four to form a search party, and after
> > four to five hours of searching they were finally able to track the
> > pack down. For my driver, Felix, this was only the third time in 15
> > years of being a driver/guide in this area that he had seen the dogs.
> > I had never ever seen them before, and it was really wonderful to do
> > so. They were much better looking than I thought they would be -
> > actually they looked like Alsatians with big round ears. Anyway, after
> > news of our sighting broke, many vehicles went in search of the pack,
> > but they had disappeared, and till we left, nobody had seen them
> > again.
> >
> >
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/EAfrica/2014/Ndutu_20140312_3426.jpg.html
> >
> >
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/EAfrica/2014/Ndutu_20140312_3300.jpg.html
> >
> >
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/EAfrica/2014/Ndutu_20140312_3617.jpg.html
> >
> >
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/EAfrica/2014/Ndutu_20140312_3325.jpg.html
> >
> > Finally, here is a panorama of the bunch we saw, all 14 of them
> > snoozing and resting, taken a few minutes after Alastair's Panorama,
> > after one or two stragglers had also come and settled down:
> >
> >
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/Panoramas/EA2013/Ndutu_20140312_3713.jpg.html
> >
> > Please see LARGE, especially the panorama
> >
> > Comments and criticism, as ever, welcome
> >
> > Cheers
> > Jayanand
> >
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> >
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>
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