Today was our last full day out on safari, and we took advantage of what Tarangire is known for: elephants. The morning was overcast and cooler, and I couldn't have asked for better conditions. Cloudy days is good, because of the soft light. It is difficult to include the sky in a scene, however that is ok because you can get good shots all day.

We lost the clouds late in the morning, however we did have good elephant viewing along the Tarangire River. Very similar viewing as yesterday, in that we had much paying and sparring between the younger males. We sat and watched two lionesses stalk impala, but the hunt was over before it began. The impala were downwind of the hunting females, and they knew what was up before the lionesses could get close.

I went back to camp early, as imy safari time had run its course. 18 days of straight through safari time has made me a very very tired dude. I will be going home tomorrow, and I will surely sleep on the plane without any effort. I miss Leslie, Christian and Will, and look forward to spending some time with them in a few days. I also look forward to my coming back to Africa in July! I will be in Botswana and South Africa in July, and then Tanzania next February. It isn't as much time in Africa in years past, however I am slowing down my safaris to concentrate on Gura Gear and family. Chris Gamel is running a Tanzania safari in June, John Paul Caponigro is running a Namibia landscape workshop in September and Randy Hanna is running a Tanzania safari in February. Plenty safaris for my customers to choose from!

We drove around the crater's edge in the early morning light, and took some time at the overlook for some quick photos. It amazes me that God created such a beautiful place with such abundant wildlife, and it doesn't go unnoticed.

We left the Ngorongoro Conservation area and fueled up our Land Rovers in Karatu, in the heary of the Mbulu district. Karatu is primarily inhabited by the Iraqw people, who are of cushitic origin and have a language that is more similar to Maa than any bantu based language. It was nice to have tarmac roads for a few hours!

We drove down from the Ngorongoro highlands, past Mto Wa Mbu, Manyara Ranch, Makuyuni and into the the northen part of Tarangire National Park.

We entered Tarangire just after lunch, and immediately ran into large herds of elephants. We spent a few hours meandering around Tarangire River, and settled across the river from a family group that was playing in the water. The young males were sparring, and the resulting action made for good shots. I loved the spashing of water, which added an additional piece of eye candy to the scene.

We started running out of luck in the late part of the afternoon, and then all of a sudden Robert spotted a large male leopard in a sausage tree near the Sopa road. He didn't stick around for long, and he jumped down into the tall grass. Afterwards we headed for camp, as we were already commited to driving towards the camp, and the only other way to prolong the excellent elephant herd viewing was to head back towards the north.

It was a very hot day, and it was a relief to have the sun set behind the Ngorongoro highlands. It hasn't rained in a few weeks, yet there is ample amounts of tsetse flies in the area. Fun!

I added up the leopard and cheetah count in the past 7 days, and we have seen 5 leopards and a whopping 13 cheetahs!! Amazing luck. Almost an embarrassment of riches when it comes to the cheeath count.

Today we were up at 5:15 and we headed out as early as we can get away with. Early birds do get the biggest and best worms, and here at Ngorongoro this is especially true. I am familiar with all of the lion prides here, and I do have an idea where to be and when. I have many many early morning sightings of entire lion prides, and this is one very cool sight. Oh, and have I mentioned that I like to have sightings by myself? I prefer to not have competition for the best shooting positions, so I just get out earlier. It isn't rocket science, but it is a good lesson for nature photographers.

We did see a pride of about 12, however they were a little far away. We moved around the crater to the upper portion of the Munge River, and we noticed that our Land Rover was having a difficult time turning. Well, the problem ended up being a bent tie rod. We were able to take it off, bend it back, and reinstall it. Nothing like looking over your shoulder for lions while repairing a vehicle.

We worked the Munge, then came across a hunting cheetah. This was a great way to watch how they hunt, however we realized that there was also a lioness in the tall grass as well. Did they know about each other? Nothing transpired, however it made for great watching for an hour or more.

The afternoon was filled with lions on feet away from us. This happened on three different occasions. Smiles all around! The afternoon light was challenging, however we did have great landscape shots with the passing clouds.

Wildebeest give birth to their calves in the southern part of the Serengeti plains in December through March, likely with the bulk being in January and February. I love this time of the year, as we can see the big herds, as well as non migratory wildlife. I also love our summer months and early fall.

The drive from Oldupai (not Olduvai, which non Tanzanians messed up on the name) was filled with golden hills, fresh with wildflowers. What a beautiful landscape it was. We haven't seen rain in over a week, and the flowers are obviously a result of those rains. Giraffes were aplenty on our ascent to the crater, and I counted no fewer than 40 individuals amongst the vivid green and yellow hills.

We arrived at Ngorongoro Crater (really a caldera, but I won't nitpick) after lunch and entered on the opposite side of the crater than our evening camp. At the bottom of th descent road was a large herd of wildebeest, and we sat and watched many new mothers graze with their newborns. Many new calves with short umbilical cords, so these calves are very very new. The calving season in Ngorongoro is different than the Serengeti, as the rains, nutrients and available food is quite different between the two.

Lake Magadi (or Makaat in the Maa language) was full with flamingos, however as of a few years ago we haven't been able to drive next to the water's edge. What a shame, but I do understand that the crater needs better protection from too many guesus. Too many roads is not a good thing for the environment and its wildlife. More roads equals more maintenance equals more money, staff, vehicles and fuel.

It was a fairly relaxed afternoon, and we spent our time with 7 huge bull elephants, picking out interesting compositions. Today was a tiring day with the travel from our last camp, and I was eager to get back to camp to unwind a little bit. Sitting in a Land Rover for 9 hours can suck the life right out of you, especially in the hot sun.

Tomorrow will be our earliest day yet, as we will leave camp at 5:59. The gate opens up at 6am, and our camp is only feet away from the gate. My feelings about the lodges here at Ngorongoro have already been written about in one of my earlier safari entries.

We moved around in the short grass, on our way to the Gol kopjes. We had nice herds of zebra, wildebeest, kongoni, topi, thompson and grant's gazelle. Some amazing running wildebeest on every horizon. Which way to go?

That was an easy decision, as Khumbi had located another cheetah who had only moments before taken down a year old wildebeest. By the time we arrived there we had at least 20 vultures waiting for their breakfast. The large male cheetah gorged himself and left when he was done. The vultures ran in and fought for the remaining meat. Nothing like watching rippers, gulpers and scrappers in the same pile. Vultures can be grouped this way: rippers open up carcasses that may have died naturally, gulpers eat much of the meat, and scrappers wait in the wings for their last pieces. Some examples:

Nubian vulture = ripperWhite backed vulture = gulperRuppell's Griffin vulture = gulperHooded vulture = scrapperEgyptian vulture = scrapper

We followed the cheetah a little while until he sat up in the grass and then I attempted to shoot with my 6x24 camera. Hopefully the shots came out, however I have low expectations to have predator shots with the camera. 300mm is a far focal length for the camera, however I had to stop down to f/32 to make sure it had enough depth of field. This yielded 1/60 for my shutter speed, which may not be enough for the winds we had today.

The winds were quite strong rom the east today, which was a challenge to deal with for those with really long lenses.

As we came over a hill on the eastern side of the Gol kopjes, we found a huge piece of the migratory wildebeest and zebra herds. There smiles and giggles all around, as they were extraordinarily clumped up and in one spot. This made the easiest photographs, however after a few minutes they scattered and started running. Not a problem, because this was a good opportunity for blurred panning shots! Whew! I was tired by 10am, because there were so many things to photograph this morning. If I had not taken notes, I would have forgotten something.

There were tons and tons of wildebeest on the eastern side of the park, towards Piyaya and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. The folks down at Ndutu must be bummed right now, as we must have most of the migration all around us. It is nice to have this all to ourselves before Leopard Tours, Ranger Safaris or some of the companies with lazy guides show up. They listen to our radios and have been known to follow us around. What lazy a**holes they are, and they are not doing well for their customers. There are some exceptions, however I have found too many. There are some great companies in Tanzania and some not so good, just like any industry in the world.

We came across yet another cheetah, although this time we saw one laying down on the top of a nice kopje with absolutely no bushes or trees in sight. The light direction was challenging, and we waited to see if he would sit up or stand up for a good composition. It wasn't to be, however it was yet another cheetah sighting!

We drove into the middle of the wildebeest migration, and from 50 feet to infinity in all directions was a sea of wildebeest. And it drowned out a herd of hundreds of eland that I saw in the distance. I could have finished the safari today and people would have been happy from just the last 2 days of game drives. Good fortunes can change quickly, so we need to always be aware of this and set our expectations accordingly.

We headed back to camp a little early, as it had been a long day by 4pm. We took advantage of the extra time at camp by working on Lightroom on my digital projector. For those that had not used Lightroom before they were sold on the tool.

I spent the morning talking with some of our camp staff, organizing my stuff, listening to Beethoven sonatas for cello and piano, reading The Economist and drinking coffee. I really needed it. When everybody came back for lunch I was rearing to go. Onward and upward.

We spent the afternoon at the Moru kopjes, and had excellent success. We watched the beautiful scenery, climbed up a huge kopje and took in the expansive views. Within 1km of Gong Rock, we came upon a gorgeous lionees at the top of a rock. No complicated background to get in the way, as she was at the top and was modeling for us. The only thing that would have been better would have been a huge male with wind in his face and his mane flapping in the wind. But I digress....

After a few minutes with the lioness, we said hello to the ranger that drove by, and he pointed us to three black rhinos that were walking out in the open area on the edge of the kopjes. There is green grass right now, as well as a plethora of yellow flowers all around the Moru area. Wow. Double wow. Triple wow. I have seen a rhino at Moru in a couple of years, and it certainly was a treat. A tad far away for a good photograph, however I was excited to see such a rare treat.

A nice drive back to camp yielded some young hyaenas, as well as birds. Too many birds species to count, but I probably noticed at least 15 to 20 species in a 15 minute drive. I will miss Moru. One of the Serengeti's most private game drive areas that the bottom feeder outfitters don't bother with. All the better for me and my guests, because I don't like sharing it! It sounds selfish, but I do kind of feel that way. I do prefer to be away from other vehicles, and I balance my safaris to try and maximize photography as well as rich experiences.

The Namibia workshop will include three amazing locations: the deserted mining town of Kolmanskop, the tall and ancient sand dunes of Sossusvlei and the remote and dynamic Skeleton Coast.

If you have thought about Namibia in the past, please take note that I am not planning another Namibia trip for at least a couple of years, so 2010 may be your year. Just a gentle reminder. Please email me at info@andybiggs.com if interested. We do have some spaces available, and international airfare is best handled more than a few months in advance. You can read more about the specific itinerary by clicking on the Namibia workshop link on the left han side of this blog.

We encountered great wildlife, and spent time with multiple elephant herds, topi, hartebeest, zebra, grant's gazelle and finished up with a mating pair of lions. The wind out on the plains was at least a 15mph, and that makes shooting with a long lens quite difficult. The lens hood on a 500mm or 600mm lens acts like a sail in the wind, as wind gets trapped and oves the lens. A good technique to offset the wind is to shoot from a lower position in the vehicle and block the wind. One thing you cannot eliminate is the wind's effect on the vehicle itself.

After our 'coitus interruptus' with the lions, we spotted a mother cheetah and her 3 year-old cubs. Gosh, what a beautiful and magnificent animal. We watched her from a comfortable 75 feet, even though we could have approached closer. Cheetahs are the only cat that actively hunts in the middle of the day, and we didn't want to interfere with her hunting.

We did notice her looking in one particular direction, and we quickly determined that there were more cheetahs around. We saw another mother with a very very young cub within binocular distance. This was definitely the highlight of my morning! We moved to watch mother #2, and within a few minutes she picked up her week old cub in her mouth and moved her out of sight. We didn't follow, but we did notice that she had another cub that she had not moved yet. Or was is 2? Well, we waited to find out. This may be the wildlife highlight of my year. The original cheetah mother could still be seen in the distance, and how the heck did we miss that she had *four*, not three cubs! So now we had visual confirmation of 8 cheetahs, perhaps 9 or 10. So we waited for mother #2 to come back to find out just how many more cubs were left. She looked nervous when she came back, so we left her alone to complete her moving of her cubs. We don't know how many she had in total, but our cheetah count for the day was 8 with at least one more unseen.

After lunch we headed back to the visitor center to get checked in for tomorrow's hot air balloon ride. For some reason they don't just accept that you have already paid and that you are going to show up. I guess that they would rather force you to show up the day before, and if you don't show up they can resell you spots and make double the money. It kind of frustrates me, but it is what it is and you have to learn the right attitude when working in Africa. Just smile, make friends and your blood pressure will benefit. Beer also helps. :-)

We drove the road towards mawe meupe (white rocks) and....ding! Another leopard. Not the best view, but that was leopard #2 for the safari. We didn't stick around for long and drove another 300 yards and ding! Another leopard in a tree. These guys must be mating, as both are full grown. We sat for a while until the sun started to set and then it was tim to head back to camp. No good views of either, however we had a great time watching both of them lounge around.

Whew. What a day. Time for a shower, dinner and bed. I still have tons of energy, however I have another 8 days to go so I have to conserve my energy.

We left camp around 6:30am, in pursuit of a lion that we heard throughout the night. His roars echoed through our tents as we drifted off to sleep last night, and during breakfast you could see the smiles on faces in anticipation finding him this morning. We didn't find him, but we did find a magnificent martial eagle who was feasting on a bustard in a tree. Talk about predation! It made some people excited and others a tad grossed out. Life on the plains is all about sex and violence, I must say. It is part of a natural cycle out here.

Since we had such a fantastic hippo-fest a few days ago, I thought it would be a good idea to return to Retima. This is a good opportunity to show exposure techniques as well as configure people's cameras to use the autofocusbutton on the rear of their cameras. Most cameras made in the past few years have this button enabled, however it has little benefit until you disable the autofocus functionality on the shutter button. This is a good reminder for me to post a specific blog entry on the subject at a later date.

On our slow drive back to camp, we saw an all out war between bachelor impalas and an alpha male. All females there part of the harem stood and watched, as they were obviously waiting to see who the victor was.

After lunch we headed out in the later afternoon, and found a lioness on a dead tree in great light. It was the same tree as a few das ago, however this time the lioness was not collared. This was a very good thing. 3 other lions were close by, however they were in the low branches of a very green sausage tree.

Kileo and I stopped by the airstrip to intercept my 'lost' duffle bag, so I now have clean clothes and my digital projector! Woohoo. We stopped at a nice landscape shot for a big umbrella acacia tree with beautiful clouds over the Rongai hills in the background.

Back to camp and time for a nice shower.....

We left camp around 6:30am, in pursuit of a lion that we heard throughout the night. His roars echoed through our tents as we drifted off to sleep last night, and during breakfast you could see the smiles on faces in anticipation finding him this morning. We didn't find him, but we did find a magnificent martial eagle who was feasting on a bustard in a tree. Talk about predation! It made some people excited and others a tad grossed out. Life on the plains is all about sex and violence, I must say. It is part of a natural cycle out here.

Since we had such a fantastic hippo-fest a few days ago, I thought it would be a good idea to return to Retima. This is a good opportunity to show exposure techniques as well as configure people's cameras to use the autofocusbutton on the rear of their cameras. Most cameras made in the past few years have this button enabled, however it has little benefit until you disable the autofocus functionality on the shutter button. This is a good reminder for me to post a specific blog entry on the subject at a later date.

On our slow drive back to camp, we saw an all out war between bachelor impalas and an alpha male. All females there part of the harem stood and watched, as they were obviously waiting to see who the victor was.

After lunch we headed out in the later afternoon, and found a lioness on a dead tree in great light. It was the same tree as a few das ago, however this time the lioness was not collared. This was a very good thing. 3 other lions were close by, however they were in the low branches of a very green sausage tree.

Kileo and I stopped by the airstrip to intercept my 'lost' duffle bag, so I now have clean clothes and my digital projector! Woohoo. We stopped at a nice landscape shot for a big umbrella acacia tree with beautiful clouds over the Rongai hills in the background.

Back to camp and time for a nice shower.....

On this next safari we will do the same itinerary as my past safari, however we will work the itinerary backwards. We will be here in the Serengeti fo 5 nights and then Ngorongoro and ending with Tarangire National Park.

We packed up the Land Rovers at the Seronera airstrip and drove the road behind the Seronera Wildlife Lodge. There we spent time photographing a family of 7 giraffes, and I am glad that my new vehicle mates took the time to really work a scene. It paid off, because the walked near the vehicle and then gave us a great side view.

Without getting into too many details which are difficult to write on a Blackberry phone, we saw excellent game every 5 minutes for the rest of the afternoon. I know my travelers are extremely happy to have such an amazing first day in Africa!

We are camping near Makoma hill, just on the western side. The sunset from here is one of the best locations in the park, as many of the central Serengeti camp sites face towards the east, and our site faces west.

There was a messup today and my main duffle bag has made its way back to Arusha with one of the guides from my first safari. Uh oh. I do have a permanent duffle bag which I leave here in Tanzania, which luckily has some basic toiletries and a few shirts. Whew. I suspect I won't see my main bag for a few days, as it takes a few days to drive back to Arusha, and then the bag will have to be put on a bush plane back to me. I can frustrated about it, but it is a lifelong goal to not let the small things bother me. Why die young with stress? I will have a nice shower, sit by the fire and enjoy a gin and tonic, and wake up to the most amazing place on this planet.

With all of this high brow opinions coming from my keyboard, now I will try to put this all to practice. Until tomorrow.......

As the sun started to get high in the sky, we headed back out for general game viewing. We stopped multiple times to grab some impala behavior, as the area was richwith them. In my opinion, sparring male impalas are excellent subjects to photograph near the end of a safari, as one typically doesn't appreciate them early in a safari. A typical safari traveler prefers big cats on their first few days, then loves on to smaller game.

For some reason we saw a black and white colobus monkey in the central Serengeti, which was quite a sight. Normally we will see them in the Ngorongoro highlands or the western corridor of the Serengeti, so this guy was very far from home. The central Serengeti does have permanent water, however the area isn't part of the home range for the colobus. Weird. Maybe scientists will blame it on climate change. :-)

After lunch we spent time in and around the Maasai kopjes, and came across a few gorgeous lions up at the top of an outcropping. The light wasn't the best, however we did sit and watch them move around a few times. I envisioned a kind of Thomas Mangelson type shot with a magestic male on top with his mane flailing in the wind. It wasn't to be.

After leaving the kopjes to intercept a nice her of elephants, we finally ran out of luck with the mud. We got stuck. Big time. Kileo and Abraham worked hard to get us out, and we all watched the lions on the kopje in the meantime. I wonder why the lions readjusted their bodies in our direction? Hmmmmm.

On the way back to camp, we saw yet another pride of lions. This time we had 3 cubs and 3 adult females. They were casually hunting an adult male warthog, but not with much gusto. Back at camp around sunset, and I am totally pooped. I am saying goodbye to my travelers tomorrow, and will be welcoming new guests to my "office". :-)

We passed by Lake Magadi and made what I call a serious water crossing, which means we had water above the hood our Land Rover. After crossing we came across a very muddy road around the kopjes. Moru always is a muddy place when compared to other roads in the park, as the area is primarily made up of black cotton soil. If I get stuck somewhere, you can count that it will be in the Moru area.

It was a fairly quiet morning, except for a group of 18 giraffe. We spent around 45 minutes composing our shots in different ways, and I cannot wait to see if some of my pano shots turned out the way I enviosned. I am having a difficult time figuring out the framing of my shots, because the Fotoman rangefinder does not have clearly defined edges. This makes composing quite difficult, especially with a longer lens like my 300mm.

I haven't used the Fuji 6x17 camera before, however I do knw that the viewfinder does have clear lines around the edges. I may try that format if this doesn't work out for me.

We had a relaxing lunch back at camp, and said goodbye to the camp staff around 2:30. We fueled up at Seronera, and took in a few sightings of lion and leopard (with an impala up in a tree). Then we were off for our camp near Robanda.

It didn't rain today, however the roads are still quite wet. We will have to spend some time near Mawe ya Maasai (Masai kopjes) to try and finish off this safari with some more lions on a rock.

I finshed my last Cuban cigar tonight, and have another 12 days before retuning home. Uh oh.

We headed down towards the Gol kopjes in search of cheetah and lion activity, as well as migratory herds of zebra and wildbeest. We certainly found all of the above.

The Gol kopjes are rock outcroppings out the southeastern plains of the Serengeti. The area has very short grass, which wildebeest love to eat. This grass is nutritionally high, so it will yield good milk for their newborn early in the year. There are also resident thompson gazelle, which means cheetah will not be far away.

We checked in at Naabi hill with the rangers there, then we were on our way. We spent the morning driving in and around the kopjes, and came across a lion sleeping on a nice rock and then a female cheetah in an open field. After some persistence, we arrived at a large kopje which appeared to have 3 female and 1 male lions. The male was splitting his time 'servicing' two of the females, and every 10 minutes was a Barry White moment with cameras clicking away. We sat for 2 hours watching the interaction between the lions, and as we were leaving to go have a picnic a second male lion came out of hiding to join into the action. It was a virtual orgy of lions, acting out in front of our vehicles. I took something like 18 exposures with my pano camera, which wasn't the easiest. With only 3 exposures per roll, I was chaning rolls quite often.

The afternnon brought more rains, and on ourt liesurely game drive we came in and out of the rain quite often. I am glad that it didn't rain at camp, because I was waiting for the camp staff to wash and dry my laundry.

The plains are so green right now, many roads are challenging and the wildlife spread out. We are having great photo ops nonetheless, and some stunning images are coming out of this group of travelers.

We headed back to camp and nearly got stuck every 5 minutes. A 30 minute drive quickly turned into 90. Ugh.

After lunch our luck turned around, and we had multiple leopard and lion sightings. Four lions in a tree here, two lions in the grass over there, a leopard in a tree there, etc etc. Excellent afternoon by any standard.

The rains are challenging from a driving standpoint, because there is mud everywhere. I am sure the local farmers are quite happy right now.

I am doing a Lightroom processing lecture tonight, and I will process raw files from some of the guests. One of the challenges from these safaris is processing through thousands and thousands of raw files. Which to select? Why? I like to help out as much as I can, as I have processed a few photos before. :-) I am shooting film and video on this safari, so I cannot show my own images from each day.