September 25, 2016
Lion in Kruger National Park, South Africa

I've finished my stay in the central part of Kruger National Park, South Africa, where I spent five nights at Satara. The dry conditions made game viewing very easy, and I saw at least five groups of lions which was about twice as many as I've seen on previous visits. I also saw and photographed a black rhino which is fairly rare to see in the park compared to the more common white rhino. A highlight was spending some time with a honey badger on two different occasions. My favorite image by far is this one of a big male Lion (Panthera leo). I spotted him first thing in the morning and he was alert while watching the humans arrive in their shiny metal boxes. After a short time, he went back to the more typical cat activity of napping. Because he had eaten recently, he probably wouldn't do anything too exciting for a while, so I left to look for other interesting species that had been seen in the area: leopard and African wild dog. I didn't see them so I circled back to the lion. He had gotten up, crossed the road and the small, mostly-dry stream, and was walking slowly along the far bank. The vegetation on my side of the stream was fairly thick so it was hard to find good windows to shoot through. I eventually got ahead of him quite a bit to a large window and waited. He had dropped down to the stream level by the time I saw him again, and he very kindly walked up the game trail straight towards me. Even though he was below my eye level, I was looking almost down the on the level of the game trail, so the perspective as he approached heading up the hill was spectacular!

I'll tell you about the southern part of Kruger National Park next time.