Cheetah Stroll

I have to apologize for my "inactivity" of late. After moving house, helping my wife to study for her exams by helping out a bit more with our baby and then taking a week off for R&R (and some photography!), I am back and rearing to get stuck into things.

Said "week off" was spent in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, my favourite National Park in South Africa. Our 7-day trip was a veritable "Cheetah Fest" (even though we saw both lion and cheetah every day, the lions were generally being lazy as usual).

This has to be one of the prime spots in Africa to view and photograph cheetah. We saw 12 individuals in total, spread out through 8 sightings in 7 days (all self-driven with no guides and trackers). Among these sightings, we witnessed one kill from start to finish, one unsuccessful hunt, one family feasting on an already made kill.

On this particular morning I was first out of the gate of the Nossob camp (this is a self-drive location...which I love doing...if you know a bit about spoor you can track some of the cats walking in and around the dirt roads at dawn). I found 2 young male cheetahs stalking and chasing a steenbok, but failing in taking it down. Afterwards they strolled towards me. This one was younger than his buddy...and the light was as sweet as only the first rays of sunlight in the Kalahari can be!

Techs:
Nikon D3s with Nikkor 500mm f4 VR-II + 1.4x TC @ 700mm
f5.6 @ 1/640 SS @ ISO-1400
No crop - full frame as shot