We started out with leopards on our first game drive. In the attached album the first 8 pictures are from that drive. We met the leopard crossing the road between our safari car and another from the lodge. When he went into bush we turned off the road and followed him through the brush until he turned down a gully where we couldn’t go. I say “he” because the guides identified him as the dominant male in the territory. The next 5 pictures are of the same male on another day when he has invaded the territory of a female guarding cubs. There was a lot of hissing and growling until he was run off. The rest of the pictures were taken over a period of 30 minutes or more of a single young male who changed position and “posed” for us in the sun. There are several pictures with his face in shadow and then it seems as if he realized we were not getting the shots we wanted and he moved into the sun. then he posed sitting up on another part of the same tree. We drove around to get pictures from the front.Leopard Pictures

The lions were being lazy and we only had one good chance to photograph them. Lions The pictures are not my favorites, but some people really want to see lions.

I know hyenas are not everyone’s favorites. They are actually classed among the Ugly Five. We came across a youngster in the den – obviously our driver and tracker knew about this den – and after creeping the safari car through the brush we got some pictures of it and then the rest of the pack came in to give us these pictures: Hyenas

Each days late drive ended with sun downers. They had selected sites for gorgeous sunsets and we would pull in and have drinks while the sun set as we prepared for a night time game drive back to the lodge. So here are some of my favorite Sunset pictures.

There will be more pictures to follow. Please understand these are lightly edited and mostly as the camera caught them.

We are still having a busy social life in Rochester and also some community involvement as well. Latest reports are that a November 15 departure is not beyond reason. We shall see.