April 2, 2017
Cape Giraffe, Lion Cub, and African Elephant in Kruger National Park, South Africa

Jan and I just spent five nights at the Satara camp in the central part of Kruger National Park, and shooting was extremely slow. The park was hit by a severe drought last year and the animal populations have suffered. The giraffe and elephant populations appear healthy though, so we've been photographing them a lot. We've seen several Cape Giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis giraffa) babies in Kruger that are about a week old, and this one posed nicely with its mother.

The area around Satara is usually a good place see and photograph Lion (Panthera leo), but we only had one good encounter on this visit. It was four older male cubs that were likely recently kicked out by their mother. They were hunting an elephant mother and roughly five-year old offspring, and it was amusing to see them with such big plans. As soon as the mother elephant saw the lions, she chased them off.

After photographing this group of African Elephant (Loxodonta africana) drinking on the far side of the river, they crossed the river which was a much more interesting opportunity for me. Enjoy!