Night hunting with a Black Leopardess. (Holy Grail images, 42 years in the making!) Pt1
Night hunting with a Black Leopardess. (Holy Grail images, 42 years in the making!)
The princess of darkness
"Giza Mrembo" (Swahili for Dark/Black beauty), grabs a Dik Dik whilst out on her nightly hunting trip, what a beautiful huntress she is! For me this has been my Holy Grail, after 42 yrs traveling to/and photographing African wildlife,
I never thought the day would come when I would be privileged to see a melanistic Leopard!
This was just 1 one of 8 successful hunting trips I was most fortunate to witness during my amazing 9 nights@Laikipia Wilderness camp, Nth/Central Kenya.
To witness 8 successful hunts in just 9 nights for a Leopard is an amazing ratio and statistic, to put it into perspective, I have witnessed only around 8 or 9 successful hunts
by a Leopard in my entire lifetime of near 50 Africa trips!
I've been extremely fortunate to have now completed a rare black photographic "Cat-trick" with a melanistic Serval, Jaquar and now Leopard.
I'm back here again for 10 nights in March.
She didn't just limit me to night time opportunities and so will post some daylight encounters in another post soon.
Nikon Z9
Nikkor Z70-200 f/2.8
1/160s
f/2.8
ISO9000@115mm.
-2EV Spot lit from the right (as viewed)
Back in black
Those eyes are absolutely mesmerising!
Nikon Z9
Nikkor Z400 TC f/2.8
1/125s
f/2.8
ISO2000.
-2.67 EV Spot lit
Hunting under a full moon.
Nikon Z9
Nikkor Z70-200 f/2.8
1/125s
f/2.8
ISO25600@70mm.
0 EV Spot lit
Many rivers to cross
Escaping her greedy half brother from pinching her prized Dik Dik kill, Giza crosses a river rock bar and takes the final leap across to the other side eventually hauling it up a tree.
With a s/s of just 1/200s, this presented quite a challenge in securing any sort of sharp images, the Z400 gave me a hit ratio of around 40%.
I believe this could very well be the first recorded image of a melanistic (African) Leopard leaping across a river @ night with a kill.
Granted there are rumored to be only around 6 Black Leopard in all of Africa.
Nikon Z9
Nikkor Z 400TC f/2.8
1/200s
f/2.8
ISO7200
-1.67EV Spot lit
The night huntress.
Nikon Z9
Nikkor Z70-200 f/2.8
1/125s
f/2.8
ISO8000@70mm.
-1EV Spot lit
Cheers
Marc
Jul 17, 2023 at 07:01 AM
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