March 8, 2013
Black Wildebeest, Eland, Blesbok, and Kudu in Mountain Zebra National Park, South Africa

I had a wonderful four days in Mountain Zebra National Park, South Africa. The park is named after the Mountain Zebra, a rare species of zebra that is only found in small pockets of South Africa and Namibia. While Mountain Zebra are plentiful in the park, I didn't get any exciting images of them this time.

I had an exciting encounter with a Caracal early one morning. It was drinking down by a water crossing close to camp before sunrise, and by the time I set up to photograph it, it had run up the bank. Fortunately, it stopped at the top of the bank and turned around to look at me, and I was able to drive closer to it and get an acceptable head shot of it with the 1D X, 500 f4 & 1.4x III at 0.1 sec, f5.6, and ISO 1600! Images of Caracal are almost becoming a dime a dozen for me, so I'll wait to show you a better image of one I photographed a few days later in Addo Elephant National Park.

Mountain Zebra National Park is also one of the best places to photograph the Black Wildebeest, and this time I had an extremely cooperative subject. This male was quite tolerant and I spent as much time as I wanted with him two different times. He's calling in this image. Black Wildebeest make something like a barking sound when they call, and it's almost like the call of a korhaan or bustard, two large types of bird!

I also found an extremely cooperative Common Eland. Elnad are usually quite shy, but this guy didn't mind when I first spotted him up close and took some head-and-shoulder portrait images with the 500 and 1.4x and then backed up and waited for him to continue grazing and come out from behind the small rise so I could photograph his whole body with just the 500.

This is a more typical distance from which to photograph Black Wildebeest, and these three were in the middle of a long line that was running along the horizon shortly before sunset.

Another common species in the park is the Blesbok, and medium-sized herbivor. The juveniles, like this one, have facial markings that are the inverse of the adults.

Greater Kudu can also bee seen in the park, and I love the corkscrew-like horns on the males. I was setting up to photograph one male when he spooked and started running towards me across a large clearing and towards brushy cover. I couldn't photograph him running because I was blocked by a lone tree, but when I saw a second Kudu about to start running too, I backed up to get a better sight line when he cleared the tree, and voila.