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Tanzania 2007 4 of 4This was followed by two more full day game drives. And this time we hit a bonanza, we found African wild dogs. (Peter in his previous 39 trips to Africa only managed to see them once). 
Unfortunately, we had to leave them early in the evening to make it out of the gate by sunset (none of my shots of that evening were usable, drat). But we found them again the next morning and revisited them in the afternoon. Interestingly enough, twice we spotted a hyena first and then the wild dogs near by. 
We also visited the site of an abandoned camp in Selous. I heard it now has a new leaseholder that will reopen it again, the location is definitely fantastic, the lodging there was a bit desolate though... Ramadani:
This was the first Africa trip for me where I did not see lions on a kill, but the dead hippo made up for this nicely I think. It was also the first where I did not drive myself and we could go cross country. Within the camp Elephant Shrews and Dik-Diks could be seen but were hard to shoot. Still it was fun to get out at sunrise trying to capture them. And there are Grey Colobus in the trees above. I think spending a day in camp would have led to interesting shots as well. The camp is not fenced in, and in the evening a Masai will guide you to your tent which has a petroleum lamp outside. A few parting images from the Selous: Lyca-breasted Roller with water scorpion:
Escaping baby hippo:
And a baby elephant:
On the last day we took a river cruise again and then headed off to Zanzibar by plane. We left in the afternoon on a small plane to Zanzibar, the relaxing part of the trip. We explicitly decided on a nice hotel (Mbweni Ruins) on the west coast, preferring sunsets to sunrises. From there we ventured into Stone Town (sorry no images, I am too people shy) and to the Red Colobus Monkeys. 
I left the backpack at the hotel and only brought the 80-200 and the 300 on the monopod. The 300 was not really appropriate here. The 80-200 or a 70-300 are much more usable when you have the Colobus jumping around you and even touching you. 
I ended up giving the 80-200 to Birgit for most of the time and focused on trying to do portraits with the 300. It was a bright afternoon, so I had low light in the bush with very bright light spots between the leaves. Not even recoverable by underexposure and shooting NEF. 
At the hotel restaurant there was a reasonably well lit tree where the staff placed bananas at dinner time to attract Bushbabies. This was right next to our table, so we had a visitor every dinner. ISO 1600, 1/15s 2.8 pre-focused (I do not like using flash on nocturnal animals), not a brilliant shot but a nice memory: 
The obligatory spice tour (after all, Zanzibar is the spice island) was also quite interesting. But do not buy much spices tea there. The freshness is not something to write home about. If you get to the non touristic parts of Stone Town, you can buy very nice fabrics for very little money and no need to haggle. Highly recommended. As our flight home was in the evening we went swimming with dolphins in the morning (sorry, no underwater camera). Quite an interesting experience. Ok, winding down here.... White crowned plover with butterfly:
Equipment used
Elmar used a 200-400VR and the other usual suspects, a really versatile piece. Peter shot with his MkIII and 300/2.8 plus converter and a few smaller pieces of glass. I was the only one without image stabilization. Lizzard skeleton: Useful things & lessons learned
The pictures in this series are all from this gallery which has a few more images. It was a very interesting trip. I hope the images convey some of my excitement. cheers |
