Wow! What a Photo Graphic Safari that was! We had 5 people join us at Jaci’s Camp in Madikwe Game Reserve in South Africa’s North West Province – Lousie Donald (Publisher of Pix Magazine), Tim and Yvonne Driman, Hilary Baak and Mike Rickard out from the UK. The idea was to try to photograph the African Wild Dogs that Madikwe Game Reserve is so well known for but, as so often happens with wildlife photography, the dogs were not quite as cooperative as they could have been. We did see them a couple of times though and we did get some pix. Everything else seemed to be doing their best to be photographed – we had great times with elephants (and had a couple of charges to keep out attention going), lions and
Lilac Breasted Roller at Madikwe Game Reserve
general game and also managed to play with some scenic after sunset.
We followed the usual format of early morning and late afternoon shoots with image analysis and other photographic discussions in betewwn and the VERY attantative and helpful staff at the lodge forced deliscous food and drink down our throuts a regular intervals. While the standard of photography at the start of the workshop was pretty good, I must say that after 4 days of intensive work on images, techniques and Photoshop, some very fine images we starting to appear. Have a look at some of the images we shot here:
This workshop was so successful we’ve scheduled some more with 2 people having already booked onto the March one. Book you place now. Have a look here for more details. Louise Donald of Pix Magazine very kindly put this video together.
After an overnight stop in Durban to celebrate the birthday of friend and fellow writer Sue Derwent, Pat and I headed up to the oldest game reserve in Africa – the Hluhluwe iMfolozi Park. HiP as it is know, is located just to the west of the Isimangaliso Wetland Park that incorporates Lake St Lucia, the largest estuarine system in Africa. Our mission? To link up with Endangered Wildlife Trust researchers Brendan Whittington-Jones, Zama Zwane and Carla Graaff, all wild dog specialists and what followed was a number of highs and lows.
It has been our intention all along, to include as much traditional knowledge as possible in this book about the wild dogs. Getting this traditional information has been a bit of a nightmare as, what is becoming apparent, is that there is simply not that much out there. The much more readily available scientific information is easy to get. Few people, certainly in the areas that we have been to, seem to have any knowledge of these animals at all, often confusing them with both side-striped and black-backed jackals. Our reading of old hunting and travel books (by the likes of Kirby, Stevenson-Hamilton and others) have shown that there was also some confusion about exactly what a wild dog was. Cape hunting dog, hyena dog and painted wolf, are just some of the names that there were given.
Anyway, Zama said he knew of a Sangoma (Diviner or Traditional Healer) just to the north of the HiP that would be willing to talk to us about dogs and so off we went. Now there are no street names in this part of rural Zululand. No street numbers. No nothing. So it took a bit of a while. A couple of stops along the way to check directions with a few locals, and we arrived at a small homestead where the Sangoma lived. What a gentleman! Helpful, courteous and knowledgeable, he provided a real insight into using various objects (both animal and plant) to treat patients. All too soon our time with him was up and it was off to continue our search for wild dogs so we could photograph them.
That was where Carla came in. There was actually a pack of about 16 that was quite close to where we were staying at Hilltop Camp. We’d got fairly close to them on the first morning using some telemetry equipment that Carla had. They were in very thick bush in a rather deep donga system and there was simply no way we could get close enough for photography. It was now 5 days later and we were no closer to getting pix of them and our time at HiP was fast running out. And then this morning after a long and completely uneventful drive in the area we rounded a corner and there they were – right in the road. I stopped about 50m from them, got off a few very quick shots and they up and offed into the very thick bush. And that was that! 5 days. About R1000-00 in fuel in the Game reserve and another R1500-00 to get here and home again and a few very early mornings. About 10 images and I’ll probably be able to use just 1. Oh, the joys of wildlife photography!
We also had a long chat to Brendan regarding his research, sitting under a huge marula tree in the iMfolozi section of the park. (The result of the sitting under a tree in the grass if a bunch of tick bites where you really don’t want tick bites!) He had some fascinating insights into the life of dogs which will certainly find their way into the book.
I have put up a small web page with some images we’ve got on this trip on it. Have a look here.
We’re off to do one of our photographic workshops after this and I’ll post the results next week. But if you’re interested in joining us on one of these please visit www.africaimagery.com to find out more.
Wow! What a couple of days we’ve had and only now got back to an Internet connection so that we can upload this.
On Saturday the 5th of April some 16 dogs were released from the boma at Mary Hill near Pont Drift in Botswana. They’d spent the past few months in the bomas getting used to their surroundings and (hopefully) would identify the Northern Tuli Game Reserve as their new home. A few hundred metres away was the Limopopo river and the border with South Africa and everyone was hoping that the dogs would not simply hightail it back to SA and their original home.
The Northern Tuli Game Reserve Researcher, Craig Jackson, has spent the past few months laying out a bio fence that would hopefully keep the dogs within the partially fenced game reserve. A bio fence? Well what this entails is collecting a whole pile of doggie doo from other wild dog packs in other game reserves around the country and placing this around the area in which you want to keep the dogs, the theory being that as the dogs approach this “fence” they recognise another pack’s territory and keep away. Does it work? It seems it might. Watch this space…
Shortly after their release a few male dogs split off from the main pack (this dispersal behaviour is normal) and headed west towards the “fence” and we last seen heading north along it – not crossing it. Hold thumbs that it works.
For the most part the other dogs are hanging around the boma site, no doubt hoping that someone would pitch up with an impala in the back of a pick-up for them to feed on. No such luck though! We have seen them making a few attempts at impala herds and they did manage to get a young warthog piglet as the family clippety clopped right into the middle of the dog pack as they were resting under a tree. We got some amazing pix of this but alas, you’ll have to wait for the book to see them! Sorry about that but we like to keep the best for last!
It was our first actual Wild Dog “kill” and what a learning curve. Picture the scene: The 16 wild dogs are lying, fast asleep under a tree when in come 6 warthogs (2 adults and 4 piglets) and we’re watching this, camera at the ready and fully prepared. At some point one of the dogs spots the warthogs and in an instant you’ve got complete pandemonium! There are now 22 animals screaming around in an area about the size of a tennis court. The warthogs are squealing, the dogs twittering away in that strange way of theirs and there are dogs and dust everywhere. What to photograph? There is soooo much happening that it is very difficult to zone in on where the action is and which dog was going to grab which animal. And quick! Looking at the EXIF information afterwards we see that the action was over in just under 20 seconds.
I was using Canon’s 100 to 400mm zoom on my 1Ds MkIII and I must say that it was superb. It’s extremely easy and quick to use and it shows in the results. I cannot think of any other lens I’d rather use in this situation.
