Bulletin 44
07 June 2008
The more common view...

"A roaring lion kills no game.." - African proverb
As mentioned previously I did a lot of driving on this trip.  I had the lion encounter on the first morning and then that pretty much dried up.  That is not to say that the following days were uneventful.  Just some of the encounters did not lend themselves to photography very well.  Either the light was far to harsh, the subject miles away (I witnessed a Cheetah kill in the form of a puff of dust on the horizon) or the surroundings obscured the subject to such an extent as to render the images very unpleasing. 

I did however force myself to take images of the more common residents of the park on this trip, as I usually tend to neglect these on my visits to Etosha where my attention is always on seeking the bigger more imposing animals.  The most common utterance from myself, and a lot of people usually is Springbuck…Springbuck…more Springbuck.  I always put of photographing the Springbuck, telling myself they are everywhere and I can always photograph them later…next time………and by the end of my stay I usually leave without any Springbuck images.  Not this time.

I made a very conscious effort to stop and take a few images whenever I encountered Springbuck.  I have portraits, groups, males sparring and even some individuals licking a road sign!!!  They might be common and numerous but they have been missing from my files for far too long now.  This has been rectified!   Oh and I think they are rather beautiful animals.  This treatment was applid equally to the other commonets of the park ie Gemsbok (Oryx), Wildebees etc..

Enjoy and there will be more images soon of some smaller common residents……….
Typical Kalahari scenery. Trees, red sand and Communal Weaver nests. I tried hard but did not spot a single Cape Cobra. Maybe next time.
I'd hate to have to move the furniture into these apartments!
This was the daily view as I headed off to "Work"! Dusty, long and hot. The roads in the park were bad at the best of times...

Gemsbok on the crest of a Kalahari dune......these dunes are vastly different from the dunes of the Namib!
These Gemsbok were watching the Lions from the previous bulletin!
One for the road!
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