Chief's Camp, Botswana

On 7 December 2011, Harald and I flew to Botswana for a photographic workshop.

From Maun we flew with a small plane to Chief's Island, where we were met by our guide, Rex. Our actual guide, Kane, didn't fit into the plane and could only fly out the next day.
The camp was stunning.

The highlights on our first game drive were 2 lazy lions under a tree and a Tawny Eagle with a kill.

The following morning we had the most gorgeous sunrise of the trip.

Unfortunately we wanted to get too close to the birds at a pan and got stuck in deep waters.

We watched on with cameras saved, as the back-up team pulled our vehicle out. That was the end of our game drive for the morning as we had spent too much time waiting to get rescued.

By the afternoon, Kane had arrived, who then took us on the game drive. What a difference - as he was also a photographer, he knew exactly how to position the vehicle so as to get the best photos. We managed to get some great bird shots:

The following morning we drove across the bridge and to"Susi's pan", a fair distance but what magnificent scenery - wide open spaces with pans and palm trees. We came across this huge Baobab that had been virtually debarked by elephants:

Elephants were everywhere:

Then we got into lion territory - about 15 lions at a buffalo kill. They were stuffed already but some were still eating:

We practised polecam for the first time. Frenzied attaching the camera onto the monopod ensued, remote attached, and then turn the whole contraption upside down and lower it down the side of the vehicle. Point the upside down camera towards the subject and start shooting. Then lift the monopod and see if any shots are worthwhile. These were my better ones:

On the afternoon drive Kane led us to a leopard sighting. She was sleeping under a tree near her kill. Kane said we would come back to her at a later stage, when it was cooler and that she would then come out and drape herself over an open log nearby. I didn't quite believe him, but when we did return after about an hour, there she was, on that exact log, unreal! She came down and started looking for her cub, that came running towards her after a while. She kept calling for her other cub but it never appeared. They returned to the log for us to photograph them. The little one was such a playful little darling

We stayed until the last light, (the above photo was taken at ISO 3200) and then had to head back to camp.

On day four we couldn't find the leopards anymore. We did, however, see Ground Hornbills:

And later some other highlights:

On the last morning we headed back to Susi's pan and found a herd of at least 200 buffalo

Kane took us to a hyena den, where we carefully climbed out of the vehicle and took some low down shots:

Via the radio, we heard that the lions had been found. In a mad dash to get to the them, Kane took a couple of short cuts and nearly got us stuck in the middle of a pan. Luckily his actions were fast and he reversed immediately out once he realised the vehicle was threatening to get stuck:

The lions were lying on the road, and more were joining them, until we counted 14.

We climbed out of the vehicle on the other side of the lions and took photos from underneath. It was very scary and risky, but Kane assured us we were ok. We had three seconds to get back into the vehicle should those lions decide to make a move - a daunting thought!!