Capturing the Moment

  Its hard to pic a photo of the day, but this might be it. We put in our time after finding this leopard resting high in the branches of this fig tree. It moved once to an open branch, which was great. But climbing down the tree to grab a drink in a nearby creek was better than I could hope for. Patience pays off again. Our day in Kenya's Masai Mara National Reserve began with one of those sunrises you don't forget. It reflected off the infinity pool and over a lone acacia tree in the savanna beyond. After a big camp breakfast, and plenty of Kenyan coffee, we climbed into our open sided Land Cruiser with our expert guide, David, and set out for a full day safari.

The cutest picture you will see all day.   Have you heard of Africa's Big 5? They are often the biggest, most dangerous animals in the park here in Africa. Its a term left over from the Great White Hunter days, where if you shot one of these animals, but didn't kill it, it could charge you and kill you. The Big 5 are lion, leopard, rhino, elephant, and cape buffalo. Well today, we saw all of those and more, here in beautiful Masai Mara. This is truly the gem of Kenya's wildlife parks, and something that every animal or nature lover should experience in their lifetime. We started off at 5:50am, in order to be the first one's crossing into the park at 6am. Being the early bird paid off with our first encounter with a rarely seen black rhino. David positioned us perfectly so the rhino would cross right in front of us. Luckily it turned and looked at the perfect moment for a photo, before disappearing into its usual bushy habitat. We were still riding a high when we came ac...

  We traveled for a while, soaking in the early morning misty plains of the Serengeti from our extended land cruiser safari vehicle. Our morning reverie was interrupted by a group of vultures fighting a hyena over a freshly killed wildebeest. It was the groups first fresh kill. Not everyone was into the gruesome action. You couldn't even see some of the heads of the vultures since they were neck deep into the carcass. But this is the circle of life. Pretty soon there won't be much more than bleached bones left, thanks to the vultures and hyena. We continued on after the vulture show, and quickly came upon two male lions and a female. As we hung out with them we were surprised to see a third male lion pop up, and then a little later a fourth male lion popped up! The mane male and female were the same mating pair we had spotted two days earlier. She now looked like she was pretty over it, and disengaged from the male every time he attempted anything. The mating pair, and two of b...

  One of my favorite leopard photos to date! What an incredible day! We left our very comfortable confines of the Masai Mara, took two bush plane rides across the country side. Crossed an international border from Kenya to Tanzania, and made it to our rough-and-tumble camping site in the Serengeti. I'm not sure what kind of camping everyone expected, but once the group saw the ultimate luxury, in the bush, kind of mobile tent camping at andBeyond's Under Canvas Serengeti Camp, we knew we were in for a camping experience like none other. This is how the royal family does it when they come to Africa, so we figured we would give it a try as well. There are no fences around the camp, and we have to be escorted to and from our rooms after dark. Our butler wakes us up in the morning with coffee, and fills our bucket showers with hot water when we come back from safari. The rooms are opulent to the extreme, even though it just looks like a big tent on the outside. Animal noises abound...