Safari tips - watch out for giraffe and zebra fun

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Squawk

Squawk

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For visitors the Africa there’s a couple of tips that guides (who are fixated on cats) don’t seem to care for but are great fun. First is if you see a giraffe drinking (entertaining in its self as it’s complicated). Wait until it’s finished as they sometimes play with the water afterwards making circles of spray.
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And find a heard of male zebras. They are always biting, kicking and being generally mean to each other. You only need to give them 10-15 minutes for the show to begin.
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And if you ask nicely they can perform opera.
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Squawk said:
For visitors the Africa there’s a couple of tips that guides (who are fixated on cats) don’t seem to care for but are great fun. First is if you see a giraffe drinking (entertaining in its self as it’s complicated). Wait until it’s finished as they sometimes play with the water afterwards making circles of spray.
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And find a heard of male zebras. They are always biting, kicking and being generally mean to each other. You only need to give them 10-15 minutes for the show to begin.
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And if you ask nicely they can perform opera.
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Lovely images and great insight
 
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All animals and their interactions are great to watch. Of course first time travellers are focused mainly on cats and/or the big 5 but as that's never a guarantee it's worth while taking good shots of whatever you come across if the photographic situation is appealing as well. Good for bringing this up and photographing giraffes puling their head up after drinking is a real challenge but definitely worth it!
 
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Many times guides drive past perfectly good photo opportunities where elephants, giraffes, and other non feline animals gather, often with great backdrops and a distinct lack of competing safari wagons, to get to a scrum of vehicles trying to spot a leopard, cheetah or lion that is getting fed up with their space being invaded by visitors who often want to tick the box and move on. The ones that give their guide a daily shopping list of what they want to see rather than letting nature make that choice. As Squawk aptly illustrates, sitting patiently and looking at the subject often produces that special moment.
Top tip. Let your guide know what your likes/preferences are e.g mine are avoiding putting pressure on animals, avoiding large groups of vehicles, no need to spend 3 hrs every evening looking fur a leopard when there is plenty of other life about etc. and not getting too close to the animal. Before hitting the safari trail, it’s worth finding out which camps specialise in photography as both their vehicles and guides will be better orientated to your needs.
 
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Great advice and great photos, Peter! I see so many 'big cat' photos that sometimes begin to wonder if they are wild or controlled by a game reserve. Thanks for sharing!
 
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The animals in the reserves are definitely wild. The only control is the perimeter fence, Masai Mara for example is 1,510s km square. Tsavo National Park is 13,747 km square. You can spend a lot of gone hunting around trying to find critters. Which is why you get is a rush to a sighting following an announcement through the radio systems which tend to be single channel and open to all, especially when most tourists are on a short visit of a couple of days and understandably want to get ‘value for money’. Cats such as lions, once found are fairly easy to shoot as they are fairly static, leopards can be very elusive and shy, cheetahs tend to be static when looking for prey and a challenge when on the move as they are so fast, hence you will see far fewer photos of kills but plenty of portraits. I am guilty of posting big cat pics and still trying to get that decent shot of some of giraffes, oryx, tommies, warthog, honey badger, mongoose etc
 
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Callie said:
Peter ~ super head-flick on the giraffe, tried it often, but not this good. Love the PJ donkeys too!
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I've got others with a semicircle of water but it's better in the watching than the photo. Whenever I see a giraffe near water I give it time as it's such fun when it comes good. They really are doing it just for fun. Must be.
 
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Squawk said:
I've got others with a semicircle of water but it's better in the watching than the photo. Whenever I see a giraffe near water I give it time as it's such fun when it comes good. They really are doing it just for fun. Must be.
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Agree, ours are usually so far, you get the whole giraffe and not enough head! :mad:
 
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