... and lions do it!!!

Well, I was going to say that I didn't have a lot of time tonight and so this would have to be a quickie, but all of you know me well enough to know that I would never stoop to using a bad pun.

We actually saw several lions mating this trip; these two at Maasai Mara just happened to be the ones easiest to photograph. When a lionness is in heat, she and the male will spend hours mating. The act itself only last a minute or two, then they rest for 15-20 minutes, and then they're at it again.

In photo number one, the female is resting in the shade underneath the tree that the male is walking towards.


Edited by Elessar on Mar 26, 2008 at 12:52 AM GMT

#2 Maybe he's thankful for what he has received and is about to receive again?? Meanwhile, she's just being a flirt.

Edited by Elessar on Mar 26, 2008 at 12:46 AM GMT

#3 They lead each other away from the brush - which was nice because the first time we saw them mate they were obscurred by the tree. Notice that he has her tail in his mouth. I also notice that the lens hood of the photographer next to me is in the shot. In the heat of the moment, these things happen. Oops, how did that pun get in there?!?

#4 Gentlemen, start you engines!!

#5 Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase - "Love Bites!"

#6 As the Japanese would say, "the moment of clouds and rain." Such a nice, innocent sounding euphemism.

#7 And now for something completely different. These giraffe were also were at Maasai Mara. These six were walking along in single file for quite some time. Auditioning to be telephone poles perhaps?

#8 Finally, as I mentioned last time, we stayed in the Little Governor's Camp at Maasai Mara. The camp had a lot of wildlife living in the camp. Warthogs were frequently seen during the day, hippos could be heard every night, and then we had this female elephant and three younger ones frequently wandering near or through the camp. Each day the camp served a buffet lunch overlooking the marsh that was in the rainbow shot I shared last time. This day, the female decided to feed on some brush near the lunch tables.

#9 She wandered off a little, but was very relaxed and happily munching so we just went ahead and ate. However, I did have to have one of the other photographers take a picture of us and our lunch guest!

Great images - it looks like you got pretty close to the action. They didn't seem to mind much huh?


Also, I enjoy the narration... So, the expression of the moment of "clouds and rain" is a new one to me... I just finished poking around google to enlighten myself

Wonderful comp on the giraffes! Too cool. Very nice series, what an experience that must have been. Wow. Thanks for sharing.

Tim

Nice group of photos and narration to go with it too. Training those giraffe probably took some time! . Good work.

Excellent series Jay, love the photos and the commentary. Although they are all amazing shots, my favorite is the giraffes, very cool shot!

Doug

Excellent commentary and photography. Love # 6 and 7.
I also came across 4 mating pairs of lions during my trip. Three of the pairs were too far to get decent pictures. It rained when I came across the last mating pair. I got some shots but not as sharp as I want them to be.
Harsha

Jay, I am continuing to enjoy the pictures from your trip. The mating lions are great, but the giraffe pictures is really captivating to me. What a lineup! Also nice to see that elephant be so calm near the camp -- last time we were around elephants in Africa (Botswana) the females were almost uniformly very aggressive so we generally kept our distance! Interestingly the males we encountered were very cool and we got quite close to them without incident. They are awesome animals to be close to on foot, I am sure that was an unforgettable experience.

Chris

Jay,

you're just have too much fun.

You're one lucky guy.

Lil

Lil Judd wrote:
Jay,

you're just have too much fun.

You're one lucky guy.

Lil

I would say Mr. Lion was the lucky guy

Jay, great series, I really enjoyed this one greatly.

Josh S wrote:
Great images - it looks like you got pretty close to the action. They didn't seem to mind much huh?


Also, I enjoy the narration... So, the expression of the moment of "clouds and rain" is a new one to me... I just finished poking around google to enlighten myself

Thanks, Josh. Yes, we were quite close. These were all shot between 90 and 170mm so I didn't even have to go fully telephoto with the 28-300.

I picked up "moment of clouds and rain" from the book Shogun (great book, highly recommend it). It never occurred to me until I was constructing this post that I might someday use it to describe a photograph I took.

Jay

Tim Kuhn wrote:
Wonderful comp on the giraffes! Too cool. Very nice series, what an experience that must have been. Wow. Thanks for sharing.

Tim

Thanks, Tim. It was actually very dark and overcast with rain all around us when I shot the giraffes. I had to lighten it up in processing quite a bit to make it presentable.

Jay

totally awesome capturing these guys in "The Act"
The Giraffe shot is absolutely stunning and would be a very interesting print !!
The pics around camp very interesting

Well done

Anthony Whitmo

Jim Rickards wrote:
Nice group of photos and narration to go with it too. Training those giraffe probably took some time! . Good work.

Thanks, Jim. Yes, it took me quite a while to train them to walk like that! Actually, we saw them at a distance and I was hoping that they would hold formation long enough for me to get a shot without being super-telephoto because as mentioned above it was really too dark for anything but the 70-200 f2.8. They held the line until we were mid-telephoto, I grabbed a few photos, and then the line broke apart. Luck and timing frequently play a big role in nature photography.

Jay

Doug Bentlage wrote:
Excellent series Jay, love the photos and the commentary. Although they are all amazing shots, my favorite is the giraffes, very cool shot!

Doug

Thanks, Doug. I like the giraffes too. They didn't really fit into any of the themes I came up with for my Maasai Mara photos, but I definitely had to throw them in somewhere.

Jay

harshaj1 wrote:
Excellent commentary and photography. Love # 6 and 7.
I also came across 4 mating pairs of lions during my trip. Three of the pairs were too far to get decent pictures. It rained when I came across the last mating pair. I got some shots but not as sharp as I want them to be.
Harsha


Thanks, Harsha. We saw two lions mating at Samburu, but we were behind them and so those photographs weren't nearly as interesting as these were. Interesting side note, the male we saw at Samburu has been seen mating many times but has never sired any cubs and so is apparently impotent.

Jay

Chris Willis wrote:
Jay, I am continuing to enjoy the pictures from your trip. The mating lions are great, but the giraffe pictures is really captivating to me. What a lineup! Also nice to see that elephant be so calm near the camp -- last time we were around elephants in Africa (Botswana) the females were almost uniformly very aggressive so we generally kept our distance! Interestingly the males we encountered were very cool and we got quite close to them without incident. They are awesome animals to be close to on foot, I am sure that was an unforgettable experience.

Chris


Thanks, Chris. I don't know this, but I think it's safe to assume that this elephant had spent enough time near the camp that she was familiar with the day-to-day activites at the camp. As long as the guests went about their business and kept a respectful distance, she was quite relaxed. That said, there were always a number of armed guards patrolling the camp to make sure that none of the guests did something foolish and none of the animals did something unexpected. I know wild animals can be unpredictable, but my general experience has been that an elephant (male or female) that you approach is likely to be edgy and aggressive, but that if you select a position at a reasonable distance and then let him or her approach you, it will be much more relaxed.

That's essentially what happened here. The elephant approached the empty tables as you see in the first shot and then moved off some. We sat down to eat and then the elephant slowly made its way back. Although it's certainly fairly close to us, it's actually further away than it looks and is not as close to the tables as it was in the first shot. If it had been, I'm not sure any of us would have stayed at the table.

Jay

Lil Judd wrote:
Jay,

you're just have too much fun.

You're one lucky guy.

Lil

Having fun?? Me?? Never!! I'm too sweet and innocent!!

Jay