The windswept terrain of the Altiplano of Northern Chile and South West Bolivia is home to some of the world’s highest altitude lakes. Surrounded by volcanic mountains, many snow-capped, but set in a landscape largely devoid of vegetation, most of these soda lakes are of breathtaking beauty. They are also home to nearly 100 bird species, the most numerous and distinctive of which are three species of Flamingos: the more numerous Andean and Chilean and the rarer James Flamingo.

Of the lakes, Laguna Colorada is unquestionably the most spectacular. Sitting at an altitude of 4,300m, it lies at the foot of the Colorado and Negro Mountains. The lake receives its name from the fiery reddish coloured waters which are caused by the presence of microscopic algae (Dunaliella salina) that contain a red coloured pigment that is emitted with greatest intensity between noon and 4pm when the level of solar radiation and temperature are highest.

The shores of the lake are encrusted with borax, used for making soap, which provides an arctic-white counterpoint to the flaming red waters. As in the soda lakes of the Rift Valley of East Africa, it is the algae which inhabit these seemingly inhospitable waters that attract the Flamingos and which in turn gives them their pink colouring.

At most of the lakes the Flamingos are quite skittish. This is one of the reasons why it often pays to travel alone or with just one or two other individuals. It’s much easier to get close to wildlife on foot as a solitary individual than in a large group. Moreover, the few tourist groups that visit the Altiplano’s lakes are generally led by guides that are either completely ignorant of bird etiquette or do not even bother to accompany their guests to the lakes. All of this meant that it was hard to get close to the Flamingos even with the use of long lenses.

The best opportunity lay at Laguna de Chaxa in North East Chile. Here the Flamingos are a little more habituated to humans. But only to an extent.  A slow, measured approach works well and while our group was well disciplined, the same could not be said of the 1-2 other tourist groups that turned up a little after we arrived. On our two visits to Chaxa, we had a good 45-60 minutes of Andean, Chilean and juvenile James Flamingos in nice pre and post sunrise light on our first visit but no more than 15 minutes on the second trip thanks to an ill-disciplined bus load of German tourists. We tried to explain to them that if they wanted to see the Flamingos – which presumably they were there to do – they needed to approach very slowly. Of course they were having none of this and charged in with their point and shoot cameras. Surprise, surprise, the lake’s entire population of Flamingos quickly took flight, not to return till well after we had given up.

However, before the tourists arrived on the first visit, there was a brief five minute opportunity, just prior to the sun peaking over the mountains to east, when the lake was bathed in the most beautiful yellow pastel colouring. This image shows an Andean Flamingo walking in this light with part of a sunrise lit mountain flank reflected in the top right.

Shortly after the sun rose, there were opportunities with juvenile James Flamingos..

…as well as this winter visitor from North America, a Baird’s Sandpiper.

The shores of Chaxa Lake are covered with blocks of crusted salt of different colours. I was keen to include the Flamingos against this back drop. The following image shows a Chilean Flamingo walking parallel to the salt covered shore.

When the tourists arrived on the second visit to spook the Flamingos, I was able to anticipate the action as these Andean Flamingos ran to take flight.

Coming soon: something totally different.

No book has inspired me more to travel to the world’s wild places than Art Wolfe’s magnificent 2003 photo book: “Edge of the earth, corner of the sky”. Among the stand out images were those from the high Altiplano of Northern Chile and South West Bolivia, a seemingly bleak, windswept plateau of parched scrub, but one which contains many spectacular visual delights. Of these, one stands above all others.

 Indeed, if the world’s leading naturalists were to convene to draw up a list of the top ten geographic wonders on our planet, Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni would surely be a strong contender.

 For years I had wanted to visit the Salar and last month I finally got my chance, joining eight other photographers on a two week expedition which culminated in three days at the Salar.

 The Salar is the world’s highest and largest salt lake at an altitude of 3,650m. During the dry season the lake is devoid of water revealing a blinding white crust of pentagonal and hexagonal shapes. During the brief wet season, the lake bed fills with water up to a few feet in depth. But the Salar is at its most spectacular when the waters have almost evaporated leaving a covering of just a few inches. This condition lasts no more than a few weeks and sometimes less with the timing and duration changing each year depending on rainfall patterns.

 The shallow water creates a perfect mirror of the sky with the degree of surrealism dependent on the amount and the pattern of cloud formations. Arriving on our first day at the Salar it was soon evident that we had hit the mother load.

 As our tour leader, Joe exclaimed: “Missed the 60’s (and its mind bending substances)? Not to worry, relive it at the Salar”.

Not surprisingly, the Salar is home to a commercial salt operation. Fortunately it is still small in scale and relies on manual labour (i.e. no heavy machinery). Not far from the edge of one of the main entry and exit points to the Salar are groups of man-made salt cones, raked into place in order to allow the salt to dry and which later are removed by truck.

Much of our photography was centered around these cones as they provided a crucial element of foreground interest while adding depth and perspective to the vastness of the Salar.  This was especially true at sunrise and sunset which often produced a kaleidoscope of mind blowing colours.  

In order to balance the foreground exposure with that of the brighter sky, I regularly used up to six stops of graduated neutral density.

 Finally, my favourite image from the Salar. The small JPG does not do justice to the incredible array of colours on display.

 Coming up next: the Flamingos of Chile and Bolivia…

With a 5 month old baby at home, I have been trying to restrict my wild encounter sojourns to short ones, especially as I have some longer trips coming up and a particularly lengthy one at the end of the year.

Hence I recently made a 4-day trip to Kenya. Yes, this seems a ridiculously short period after journeying for so long. However, although the flight is long (13 hours), it is direct, and once in Kenya I was able to accomplish a surprising amount photographically. This was one of the rare Kenya trips where I did not venture to the Masai Mara. Instead, I headed north to the Lake Turkana area and then south to Lake Natron, two destinations that I have come to love over the years.

To get to Lake Turkana I used my trusted pilot, Christian. After an hour of flying north, we landed at a remote and seldomly used airstrip, where we removed the doors on one side of the aircraft. From there, we made the short hop to magical Lake Logipi, located just south of Lake Turkana. I have photographed this seasonal, soda lake from the air on several occasions and it never fails to thrill. Conditions are always different because of varying water levels, although even when full, the water is rarely more than a few feet deep. Where there is water, there are inevitably throngs of Lesser Flamingos. After unusually heavy rains in the area in May last year, the entire lake filled with water and when I photographed it at the end of October, most of the lake was full. Three months later and water levels have declined dramatically. Day time temperatures on the lake are in the 40s c so it is not surprising that evaporation rates are high. The lake is fed by the Seguta River but it too is seasonal and usually stops flowing in the dry months.

Soft layers of silt of different hues of brown lie below the shallow water. Below the silt sits a layer of gooey, black mud. The Flamingos’ feet penetrate the silt and when they run through the water to take flight, they leave black trails within the brown silt. The combination of the white and crimson coloured Flamingos, the black mud trails, the differing shades of brown silt and the cloud reflections mirrored on the lack surface create an amazing kaleidoscope of colours when seen from the air. Depending on the angle of the sun relative to both the aircraft and the lake, the browns often transition into greens, blues and yellows.

A word on aerial photography. I always use two camera bodies with two lenses. On one body I use either a 16-35mm lens or more preferably a 24-70mm lens. On the other I attach a 70-200mm lens.  Both bodies with attached lenses are draped around my neck via camera straps. I find with this set up that I can rapidly switch between each rig. On no account should you use lens hoods. If the lens protrudes even a few centimetres out the door, it will be whipped back by the gale force wind rushing past the plane’s fuselage. The most important point is that you need a consistently high shutter speed. The aircraft is constantly bouncing around and it is rare that you can keep your camera body and lens completely still. The good news is that given the distance from the lens to the ground, depth of field is not an issue so an f stop in the order of f4 or even wider will suffice. The large aperture together with a relatively high ISO (400-500), should ensure that your shutter speed is well over 1/1,000 sec. That said, expect to have a large number of unsharp images due to aircraft turbulence. The closer the plane is to the ground, the greater the apparent speed of the plane and the lower one’s chances are of making sharp images. As a result, it is advisable that the pilot maintains a reasonably high altitude. In addition, this will result in less disturbance to the wildlife on the ground. The noise from a light aircraft, even at 1,000 ft+ is usually enough to spook birds. Both Christian and I are mindful of not spending too long over a particular area in order to avoid excessive disturbance to the bird life.

Then there is the small matter of cost – aerial photography is not cheap and consequently, this is also a limiting factor on the amount of time spent in the air.

Getting correctly exposed images is the other headache. Firstly, the direction of light is constantly changing because of the movement of the plane relative to the sun although this is less of an issue on overcast days. At Logipi though, overcast days are rare. Secondly, you need to consider the size and tonality of your subject relative to the tonality of your background. Because of the constant movement of the plane you have a very small window of opportunity to frame a given image and hence also a very short duration to dial-in correct compensation. Lesser Flamingos in particular are a nightmare when photographed from the air and with medium tone or darker tone backgrounds one usually needs large amounts of underexposure to avoid blowing the whites. However, in order to save the whites, sometimes you need as much as 3 stops of –ve compensation (or more) which will render the background as black or near black. Given that the background is often the main attraction, I am regularly left with a dilemma. Often I try to settle for a little overexposure on the Flamingos with the hope that I can recover most of the blown whites in the Raw software.

One last pointer is to avoid getting completely wrapped up in the technical aspects of the photography and to try and enjoy the moment. Aerial photography is exhilarating and in place like Lake Logipi and Lake Natron it is beyond exhilarating. Try flying over thousands of flying Flamingos and I guarantee it will get the hairs on the back of your neck standing rigid.

After 45 minutes over Logipi, we headed up the left bank of Lake Turkana flying over the Loriu Plateau. At first we crossed over a series of barren hills with the lake in the background.

After the hills we flew over a semi-desert landscape punctuated by date palms and scrub. Despite the harshness of the terrain, the area is home to large numbers of the local Turkana tribe.

There are also a surprising number of wild camels in the region.

As is the case in even some of the remotest corners of Africa, as soon as our plane touched down, several local tribeswomen appeared seemingly out of nowhere to gawk at our plane and as usual to see if there were any handouts on offer. I’m always amazed at how immaculately dressed the tribeswomen are in Africa despite living in inhospitable environments (to westerners anyway) and subsisting barely above the poverty line.

After an overnight stay at a surprisingly comfortable “resort” on the edge of the lake – somewhat counterbalanced by barely edible food – I took an early morning walk along the edge of the lake where I encountered this group of young Turkana goat herders who agreed to pose for a picture in exchange for three Polaroid photos (a Polaroid camera is a wonderful addition to any trip to Africa’s remoter regions and can open a surprising number of doors as well as winning over initially hostile locals).

Following a quick lunch of some sort of famine-starved fowl (I think chicken, but hard to be sure), I loaded my camera equipment onto a small outboard-engine powered, fibreglass boat for the two hour boat ride to my main destination – Central Island, in the middle of Lake Turkana. 

I had made a very brief recce of the island in late October and was told that on occasion, large numbers of Lesser Flamingos take up residence for a few weeks on one of the island’s three emerald green, crater lakes. Since October, a local guide had been keeping me apprised of Flamingo movements in the crater lakes. When I was told in December that several hundred were now residing on the lake, I made the decision to come back. While I had few expectations photographically, I was attracted by the knowledge that very few photographers have ever photographed on this lake. Still fewer (if any) have camped on the island.

As I was to find out, there are some good reasons against any prolonged stay. First there is the heat. With day time temperatures in the high 40s c and shade at a premium, I felt like I was in survival mode during my entire stay. Despite the largely desert like conditions of the entire Lake Turkana area, the humidity on the island is also surprisingly high. The combination of extreme heat and humidity made for no small measure of discomfort. In the middle of the day I would lie in my tent feeling like a piece of candy left out in the sun – a sticky, melting blob. I was very careful to ensure that we had plenty of bottled water and I probably consumed close to a litre every hour, most of which I mixed with rehydrating salts.

My big error was to come without any mosquito repellent. Shortly after we set up camp on the island’s volcanic ash beach, I was alarmed to look down at my bare legs to find 50+ mosquitoes dining out on my blood. Early every morning and late every afternoon, huge swarms of these blood suckers would descend on our camp site. They would then follow me up to the crater rim and down to the crater lake, relentlessly probing for any bare skin. Despite the heat, I was forced to cover my bare skin to avoid being bitten to pieces.

Every night, hurricane force winds would get up, blowing the loose volcanic ash on the beach in snow drift proportions into my tent. I tried covering the tent with a tarpaulin but the strength of the winds was such that no matter how securely it was fastened, it quickly became loose. As you can imagine, any sustained period of sleep was near impossible. I ended up sleeping with a towel over my face to avoid an otherwise constant inhalation of fine ash particles.

Then there was the issue of food. The “cook” at the resort had clearly erred on the conservative side when packing for our two day trip: a few cups of rice, some small, rancid fish and a block of cement-like bread. Fortunately, I had bought two packs of freeze dried, spaghetti bolognese – although this had to be shared with my guide and our boatman. By adding rice, we stretched this out to last us four meals.

However, if you want to photograph in truly wild places, these are the hardships that must be tolerated. And when I made the arduous 15 minute climb to the top of the crater rim for the first time to find several hundred Flamingos flying around the crater walls, I knew that any short term suffering would be worthwhile.

It is hard these days to be alone anywhere in the world photographing wildlife. I have just returned from Eastern Hokkaido in Japan, one of my favourite wildlife destinations with boundless photographic opportunities. However, it is rare that you will ever be on your own and often you will find yourself photographing along side huge numbers of long lens totting photographers. For me anyway, this diminishes somewhat the overall experience. While the photographic opportunities on Central Island cannot compare with Hokkaido in winter, knowing that it is just you, the birds, the wind and the dramatic backdrop of the crater walls (ok…and the mosquitoes) somehow elevates the experience.

Unlike the Flamingos at places like Lakes Nakuru and Bogoria, the Flamingos in Flamingo Crater Lake of Central Island are incredibly shy. Despite my best efforts, I could not get within a few hundred meters of the main group before they would start to move away. As a consequence, my photographic opportunities over the next day and a half were restricted to flying shots and of a few individuals that I managed to get sufficiently close to.

If I had had more time I am sure I would have been a little more imaginative with my photography but as is often the case when one visits a destination for the first time, I subconsciously restricted myself largely to what I term “safe” shots. Still, I did know that I was particularly keen to photograph the Flamingos flying along some of the dramatic sections of the crater walls in the late afternoon light.

As the sun was setting over the western rim of the crater, the crater wall on the eastern side took on a golden yellow colour which in turn was reflected beautifully in a portion of the lake water below the wall. I was just about able to isolate one Flamingo individual in this golden water although I would have preferred it a little lower down in the frame.

After nightfall on my first night I lingered on the crater floor fending off an unremitting mosquito attack. I had wanted to do some night sky photography and the following images required a little thought. After the sun had set but while there was still a little light left, I set up my tripod, using a compass to point the camera north, and took an initial image of the crater walls, deliberately underexposing by two stops. I then waited two hours, to the delight of my mosquito friends, before making a second image exposed for 30 seconds at f.4 and setting a very high ISO of 3,2000. I then took a third image with an exposure of 22 minutes at f.4 and an ISO of 200. My intention being to use a layer mask in Photoshop to blend image 1 with image 2 and then secondly with image 3. I did make a fundamental error with the last image by failing to turn on the long exposure noise reduction function. This has resulted in a fair amount of noise (in the form of hot pixels) in the night sky. Perversely, these hot pixels look like stars and I kind of like the effect.

Back at the beach camp the following night I took a more straight forward 25 minute exposure. Again, I pointed the camera north making sure that a good portion of the image included the area immediately above the horizon. In the northern hemisphere, close to the equator, the North Star is visible at only a few degrees above the horizon. To create a bit more interest in the image, I included a lowly elevated rock in the sea, illuminating it briefly with a flashlight during the exposure. A very faint after glow from the setting sun imparted a slight red tint to the image. And yes, this time I remembered to turn on long exposure noise reduction.

With a midday flight connection, I needed to be off the island by 7am the next day. Lake Turkana is a large lake (Great Lake size) and when the wind blows, a sizeable swell develops with the tops of most waves breaking. The ride on the way over to the island had been uneventful with our boat running in the direction of the swell enabling it to make good time by surfing down the faces of the waves. On the way back, we had to point the nose of the boat into the swell. As our boat punched through the waves, we very quickly became soaked. The going was much slower than on the outbound trip. About three-quarters of the way to the shore of Lake Turkana I noticed that on one side of the boat, the outside panelling had worked itself loose and was coming away from central chassis. I could see water leaking into the boat. Oh dear. My initial concern was for my camera equipment but this soon changed as it became apparent just how much water we were taking in. I spent the last hour of the trip frantically bailing with a saucepan in one hand while trying to hold the loose outside panel tight against its chassis with the other.

We eventually made it to shore but I do not believe the boat would have survived another hour.

After a quick shower (badly needed despite the drenching in the boat), I sped off to the airport an hour away at Lodwar where I caught a scheduled flight back to Nairobi. Landing at Nairobi’s international airport, I was again met by my pilot, Christian. We were soon back in the air, this time heading south to Lake Natron on the border with Tanzania. We landed at a small, dusty and baking hot airstrip overlooking nearby Lake Magadi, to remove the doors on one side of the aircraft.

Back in the air, we flew initially over the southern shores of Lake Magadi…

…before crossing into Tanzanian air space as we flew towards the surreal landscape of Lake Natron. Like Lake Logipi, Lake Natron is a soda lake. Viewed from the air, large portions of the lake have the appearance of the surface of another planet. This needs a little explanation. During the formation of the lakes much of Kenya and Tanzania’s Rift Valley was covered in volcanic ash, rich in sodium carbonate. Rivers flowing into the lakes, both above and underground, coupled with rainwater runoff from the volcanic ranges that ring the lakes, transported volcanic materials and mineral salts into the lakes. The lakes have no natural runoff and when combined with searing temperatures, the dissolved salts were concentrated through evaporation leaving behind two sodium compounds: sodium bicarbonate and sodium hydroxide. When found in high concentrations, they give rise to water that is highly corrosive – enough to badly burn the flesh of a human.

Hence it may seem strange that huge numbers of Flamingos have chosen these lakes as their home. While the waters repel nearly all life forms, a few plant species have adapted to not only withstand the corrosive waters but to positively thrive in them. The most common are single cell algae known as Spirulina and it is this algae that forms the staple diet of the Lesser Flamingo.

Lake Natron fills with water for only a few weeks each year during and following the long rains in April and May (see my May 2010 blog post:http://www.wildencounters.net/weblog/2010/05/serengeti-tanzania-may-2010/ ). For the rest of the year much of the lake is composed of a brittle crust of sodium bicarbonate which covers layers of silt and mud. Lake Logipi does not have the same concentrations of sodium compounds and hence one does not see the vast expanses of sodium bicarbonate crust that characterise Lake Natron for much of the year.

The sodium compound crusts form incredible patterns of ever changing colours – the colours being influenced by the degree of water and the relative concentration of the compounds. On the trip there were the usual reds and browns and even some blues…

…but also a large amount of blacks. This is a black & white converted image but the original is close to monochromatic. It has become one of my two favourite images from the trip.

Although I have seen a few raised sodium mounds that comprise Flamingo nests on Lake Logipi, Lake Natron is the primary breeding ground for the Flamingos. The breeding takes place far from shore on “islands” of thin sodium crust. These areas have deliberately been chosen such that they are unreachable by all non-avian predators including humans. The image below shows the circular array of nests used by the Flamingos but which have since been abandoned.

When the Flamingo chicks fledge, the leave on mass, accompanied by a few adults, to other areas of the lake, closer to the shore. This short migration was wonderfully captured in an incredible Disney Nature documentary released last year, “Crimson Wing”. If you have not seen it, I would strongly urge you to buy the DVD. It is one of the greatest wildlife documentaries ever made with breathtaking cinematography.

I knew that my Natron flight was likely to coincide roughly with this event and while I did not get to witness the main migration, I was thrilled to find large concentrations of the juvenile Flamingos on both the sodium carbonate crusts as well as on the shallow water mud and silt flats closer to shore.

As we made a final pass alongside a meandering group of juveniles, I took a last few frames, shooting into the sun and underexposing. The original image below is another one that is largely monochromatic which I have rendered entirely monochromatic by converting to black and white. It is my favourite image from the trip.

And so after an all too brief 45 minutes it was time to head back to Nairobi. Every time I complete an aerial photography trip to East Africa’s soda lakes, I come away with not only a complete sense of wonder and awe, but also a recognition of just how privileged I am to be one of the very few people to have witnessed these surreal landscapes and the Flamingos that make them their homes.

Last year I travelled to Tanjung Puting National Park in Kalimantan, Indonesia and enjoyed myself so much I knew that it would not be long again before I returned. Tantung Puting and especially the area around Camp Leakey at its entrance is, hands down, the world’s best place to see Orangutans in their natural habitat. The relative remoteness of the location, the absence of tourists (especially during the rainy season) and the “Heart of Darkness” journey up the Sekonyer River on your own personal klotok (houseboat) add to the overall experience of adventure.

Living in Asia means that getting to Tantung Puting is not nearly as arduous as it would be for someone based in the US and Europe. For me it is a short, 4-hour hop down to Jakarta with an overnight stay followed by a mid-day flight to Pangkalan Bun in South East Kalimantan (Kalimantan is the southern half of the island of Borneo). This time I was able to take a direct flight and surprisingly the flight was on time – a rarity for domestic Indonesian flights.

My guide met me at the airport from where we made the short drive to the river port of Kumai. From here it was straight onto an 8m long klotok, a traditional Indonesian river boat, on which my crew of four was waiting (boat driver, guide, cook, boat boy). The first image below shows the klotok moored up against the dock at Camp Leakey and the second as it motors down a small tributary towards the park. As you can see, the klotok that I used is fairly small and basic. A night the crew would lay down a mattress with some cheap sheets and rig a mosquito net over it. Most nights I slept under the waterproof canopy (where the rug is) but I spent one of the nights on the foredeck – that is until a torrential rain storm sent me scurrying for cover. The first image also shows the mattress drying in the sun the next day.

Leaving Kumai to a burning sunset, we motored down the Sekonyer River for four hours, largely in the dark, before securing the boat for the night to some half-submerged trees. The combination of the stifling humidity, a mattress that felt like it contained rocks and several extremely resourceful mosquitoes that managed to find their way through the netting, all made for a fitful night’s sleep even with the help of a sleep aid.

On subsequent nights we would moor closer to Camp Leakey but always seemingly in a swamp populated by millions of carniverous mosquitoes. If I turned on my laptop screen at night without the “protective” cover of a mosquito net, the light from the screen would quickly attract thousands of flying ants and beetles which invariably would seek to bed down in my hair. Eventually I took to eating my dinner in near total darkness but even then I would wear a cap to avoid having to repeatedly remove clumps of entangled insects. You will note that I have put “protective” in inverted commas. Despite my extreme care in entering into the net each night and an exhaustive search for even the smallest of holes (none found), I would still wake up each morning covered in bites.  

At 4.30am, in almost chilly temperatures, we would be on our way, mindful that dawn was only half an hour away. As it became progressively lighter, the deep tannin colour of the river water would become visible.

Rivers that contain this tea coloured water are pollution free with the colour the result of decaying vegetation below the surface. This is in contrast to the main Sekonyer River which is now a latte colour, the result of mining runoff from upriver. My crew told me that 15-20 years ago all the rivers in this area were tannin coloured – a timely reminder of the many man-made threats that this fragile ecosystem faces.

On the first morning, we made our way up to Camp Leakey on the klotok with the rainforest on either bank and with the edges lined with walls of fringing Pandanus plants. All around was a cacophony of sound – insects, birds and loudest of all, the piercing calls from various primates, some visible although usually perched high in the canopy. Borneo is home to 5,000 tree species (vs. 34 native species in the UK) and the relatively small area that is Tanjung Puting National Park contains 220 bird species, 17 reptile species and 29 species of mammals. Among the most common are Proboscis Monkeys, the male species with its distinctive tubular, bulbous nose; and Long Tailed Macaques.

But the most distinctive calls and the ones that invariably would wake me pre-dawn were those from the Black-Handed Gibbons. I have seen this species on two occasions – once this year and once last year – and they really are the gold medallists when it comes to athletic agility between the trees of the rain forest.

The park’s headquarters are at Camp Leakey which was established in 1971 by Dr. Birute Galdikas and her then husband, Rod Brindamour. Along with her arguably more famous counterparts, Jane Goodall and Diane Fossey, Galdikas was selected and mentored by the famous anthropologist, Dr. Louis Leakey, to make long term studies of the three great primate species – in Galdikas’ case, the Orangutan. Galdikas’ accounts of her establishment of Camp Leaky and her study and breakthrough findings on the Orangutans are contained in her incredible autobiography, “Reflections of Eden”. Having read similar memoirs from Goodall and Fossey, I found Galdikas’ to be the most compelling, in part because of the horrific conditions that she endured when she first arrived. For the first two years, she essentially lived in a leech and snake infested swamp. Most of her days were spent chest deep in river/swamp water trying to catch glimpses of elusive Orangutans while at the same time seeking to avoid menacing poachers. How she survived, let alone found the will to continue her study is certainly hard to fathom.

At that time in Indonesia, Orangutans – especially juveniles and babies – were regularly kept as pets, often in dreadful conditions. Galdikas made it her mission to rescue these “imprisoned” Orangutans, rehabilitate them at Camp Leaky and then return them to the wild. The vast majority of Orangutans around the Camp Leakey area comprise Orangutans that have been either rehabilitated and released or are the offspring of rehabilitated Orangutans. As a result, they are generally comfortable in the presence of humans although the relative level of acceptance varies greatly as does each individual’s personality. In many ways they are like humans on this count: some gentle and passive, others aggressive and threatening. Indeed, the similarities with humans should not be surprising given only a 3% DNA difference. I took the image below when an Orangutan approached one of the few tourists while I was there. The Orangutan sat down in front of her and extended its figures. The girl responded and this was the unusual outcome – “I thee do wed?”.

The guides and the rangers that are based in the park know many of the individuals and their personalities and hence are invaluable for visitors in for example, gauging how close an approach an individual will tolerate. Orangutans are incredibly strong, can outrun a human over short distances and have teeth to rival any of Africa’s big cats, so it well worth heeding the advice of the guides. This image shows the dominant male of the Camp Leakey area, Tom, standing on his hind legs, sheltering from the rain. At 80kgs, 1.5m tall and with an arm span of more than 2m, he cuts a formidable presence and towers over the park’s females.

The males also sport distinctive black cheek pads and throat pouches which help to project their booming calls, audible over two miles away. The image below is again of Tom, his face wet from the rain.

Two of Galdikas’ key successes have been the establishment of Tantung Putting as a 415,000 hectare national park and the banning by the Indonesian government of Orangutans as pets. As a result of the latter, the practice of rehabilitation at Camp Leakey has been phased out.

Virtually everything we know about Orangutans today we know because of Galdikas’ studies. Before her arrival, it was not known e.g. whether they were social; whether they were herbivorous or frugiverous; whether they spent all their time in the trees or whether they came to the ground. Of special importance was her discovery that the females have an eight year birth cycle, the longest of any mammal and a key factor making the species vulnerable to extinction.

From the dock at Camp Leaky, an elevated boardwalk extends over a river forest before reaching dry land where a series of trails radiate out through the rain forest. Every day, one of the oldest and most cantankerous of the area’s Orangutans, Siswi, would park herself on the narrow boardwalk waiting to harass passers by. The only way to pass was to throw a banana or dried raman (noodles) onto a nearby tree in order to entice her to move. If you tried to walk over her, she would either grab you with a seriously strong kung-fu grip or worse yet, bite you. In effect she acts like a toll keeper. You want to pass? You give me food.

After our daily circumvention of Siswi, we would head into the rain forest in search of Orangutans. I had been told in advance that being the rainy season, with many of the forest’s 200 varieties of fruit trees in season, fewer Orangutans would be visible in the areas (c. a 1km radius) around Camp Leakey. However, as it turned out, Orangutan numbers appeared to be just as plentiful as when I had last visited in the dry season (May-October). Usually we would find an Orangutan or better still a mother with baby within 10-15 minutes of heading down a trail.

More often than not, they would descend from the canopy to check us out – usually in the hope that we had some food for them. As with my last visit, this allowed for liberal use of my 16-35mm wide-angle lens, mostly in conjunction with a little fill flash (-3 stops) and a soft box attached – often handheld. Light is at a premium in the rainforest and contrast levels usually high, necessitating the use of fill flash to open up the shadows on the Orangutans.

On one occasion I found a juvenile that was particularly active, using the numerous tree vines to swing between the trees. This allowed me to dial down the shutter speed to 1/25^th second while using fill flash to ensure a degree of sharpness while still retaining a sense of motion.

Like Chimpanzees, Orangutans are adapt at making tools for various purposes. I have seen them break off long branches and use these as spears and weapons to beat away overly inquisitive wild Forest Hogs. Orangutans build temporary “nests” high in the trees, out of leaves, in which they spend the night. They also use this skill to assemble make-shift umbrellas when it rains.

Most surprising of all is the mimicking of human behaviour by the Orangutans around Camp Leaky. On a number of occasions I have seen them steal soap from the rangers that wash in the local rivers. The Orangutans will then proceed to lather up the hair on their arms – in the same manner that a human would shampoo his/her hair. Where they differ from humans is that they will often proceed to eat the soap, with amusing results, but with no apparent ill-effects.

For the most part, I searched for adult females with babies or juveniles. The babies are irresistibly cute but at the same time often comical in appearance with their out of control hairstyles and humorous facial expressions.

Young Orangutans spend most of their time clinging to and suckling from their mothers and when they do let go, they never venture more than a few feet away.

Even at a young age they are already extremely agile and dexterous and completely comfortable in the trees. I like the following two images in part for the mother’s hand which lends a sense of scale to her offspring.

On my last morning, I concentrated on smaller, non-primate species. As you would expect, insect life flourishes in the rain forest and I found one clearing, covered in ferns, to be especially rewarding. There I also found this beautiful Pitcher plant. With the background less than satisfactory, I switched to manual exposure mode using a small aperture and dialling up the flash output up to almost full power in order to render the background black and produce a studio like appearance.

While I have done plenty of macro photography underwater (more coming up over the next two months), for some reason I have done very little on land. But when this unidentified Dragonfly landed on a fern and remained relatively still for several minutes, I made over 40 images, of which this one is my favourite.

And so after four days it was time to head home. Unlike many of the world’s endangered species which are poached as bush meat or for use in traditional Chinese Medicine products, the overwhelming threat to the Orangutan comes from loss of habitat. Orangutans are only found in Malaysia and Indonesia, the majority on the island of Borneo which includes Kalimantan in the south. Borneo contains the world’s third largest rain forest, yet in the last 40 years, 40% of this or 40m hectares, equivalent to the size of Germany and Holland combined, has already gone. At the current pace of destruction, the United Nations Environmental Program estimates that less than 5% of this rainforest will be left in 15 years. Quite apart from the contribution this is having on global warming, it will, if left unchecked, lead to the virtual extinction of the Orangutan. Already there has been a precipitous decline in Orangutan numbers from as many as a quarter of a million a century ago, to just 15,000 today.

Initially the culprits were mining and logging but over the last 15 years, the clearing of the forest for palm oil plantations has been the big offender.  Palm oil, of which Malaysia and Indonesia account for 90% of global supply, is the 2^nd most consumed edible oil globally after soya bean oil and is used in a huge range of consumer products from cosmetics to packaged foodstuffs.  In recent years, as the price of crude oil has risen, the demand for palm oil as a bio fuel has escalated, creating additional demand for palm oil acreage and in turn, rainforest clearance.  

It is important not to have too blinkered a view on this issue because it needs to be remembered that the palm oil industry employs over 20m people in Indonesia and has helped lift many out of poverty. Consumption in rural Indonesia is heavily correlated with the palm oil price and this has proved a boon for a large chunk of rural Indonesia in recent years.

On the other hand the costs are just as, if not even higher: monoculture plantations result in massive forest and species destruction; indigenous people lose their land, their cultures and their land practices when plantations take over; it increases conflicts between wildlife and humans – plantations consider Orangutans as pests; plantation work in SE Asia often pays below the minimum wage and bribery and corruption are heavily associated with the expansion of palm oil plantations. Most plantation companies use fire to clear forests. This can have catastrophic consequences. ¾ of the huge fires started in Borneo in 1997/1998 were done so by palm oil companies and one of these fires alone killed a staggering 20,000 Orangutans, more than 10% of the entire global population at the time.

While palm oil is an extraordinarily versatile food product, it is a remarkably poor bio fuel. More carbon is released from the conversion of forests to palm oil plantations than saved through the replacement of fossil fuels with the palm oil produced. The equation is especially unbalanced when the plantation is located on peat swamp forest, increasingly the case in Kalimantan and off the charts when burning is the final step in clearing.

Today, palm oil plantations surround Tantung Putting National Park and are already encroaching on the Park’s boundaries and wild Orangutans throughout Indonesia and Malaysia are being hemmed into ever smaller areas. When you come away from a place like Tantung Putting, it is hard not to feel some sort of connection with our redheaded cousins. At the same time, I also cannot help wonder whether my 3 month old daughter will ever get to see these graceful giants of the forest in their natural habitat when she is grown up.

My short trip to Kenya got off to an inauspicious start when my brand new Canon 1D MK 1V camera packed it in after just 40 minutes of shooting. “Error 20” was the flashing message – this is a problem related to the mirror/shutter mechanism that no amount of battery removal would solve.

Fortunately I had a number of other camera bodies with me and of these I settled on two, always reliable, albeit slow (in terms of frame rate) 5D MK 2 bodies. It’s always convenient to blame one’s equipment for poor images but I like to remind myself of what Mitsuaki Iwago was able to achieve in 1982/84 in his seminal publication “Serengeti” which even today, still looks fantastic –and  these were the days before even auto-focus was around, let alone digital technology.

Arriving in the Mara, I headed straight for the Cheetah mother and her six cubs which I had first seen back in early August. Amazingly and against all the odds, this remarkable mother has managed to ensure that all six cubs are still in rude health.

Imagine living in an environment where 1) you are a single, homeless parent with six young children to raise; 2) every minute of the day and night there are a variety of predators, always in close proximity, that are trying to kill you and your children; 3) you are required to catch and kill all your food unaided by any tools; 4) coalitions of males of your own species are intent on kidnapping and possibly raping you. This is the plight of a female Cheetah with cubs in the wild.

Mortality rates among Cheetah cubs are exceptionally high due mainly to predation from Hyenas, Lions and Leopards so to have raised not just one, but six cubs to just over four months is an incredible feat. As each day passes, the odds of their survival and attainment of adulthood, improve. Indeed even now they can outpace other predators as long as they have some warning and are not ambushed. Unlike other Cheetah mothers that I have observed with young cubs and which have stood toe to toe with predators, this one sensibly flees with her cubs at the first hint of any danger. What is extremely exciting is that four of the cubs are males. Should they survive, they will likely form a coalition with potentially awesome predatory capabilities.

Right now the cubs spend much of the day play fighting with each other. In reality this play fighting involves stalking, running, jumping and throat biting, all essential skills which will need to be honed to ensure a successful transition to adulthood and independence from their mother.

The cubs are already going after smaller prey. This cub actually managed to catch this juvenile Banded Mongoose but has still not developed the necessary throat choking skills to dispatch it, affording the fortunate, smaller, youngster a lucky let-off.

At this age, the cubs are also busy exploring their environment and unlike Cheetah adults who only occasionally venture into trees, the cubs cannot resist anything wooden and vertical.

Being homeless means having to endure the elements and at this time of the year, the Mara is often subject to torrential downpours of rain. Whenever it rains, the temperature drops several degrees and sitting in the comfort of our vehicle, it is hard not to feel sympathy for all the creatures of the Mara, large and small, who are forced to tough out the elements.

But rain always makes for interesting photographic opportunities and late on my second day as dusk was rapidly descending, necessitating an ISO of 2,500, I took what has become one of my favourite images. In a perfect world, all six of the cubs would be looking at the camera but the image is still a strong one, made by the water droplets shearing off the mother and the priceless expression on the cub’s face to the immediate right. It’s one of those images that begs for a caption…

I saw no Leopards on this trip (partly because I did not look for them) and spent only very limited time with Lions but I did have some good photographic opportunities with:

1)      An adult Bateleur Eagle on an attractive perch with lots of positive exposure compensation to ensure detail in the bird.

2)      A Hippo in the rapids of a very high Mara River shot at 0.4 of a second to blur the flowing water but still fast enough to ensure a sharp image of the Hippo.

3)      This juvenile Black-Backed Jackal shot backlit at sunset outside its den. The trick with backlit shots at sunrise and sunset – and at the equator, the window of opportunity is less than ten minutes – is to 1) underexpose (anywhere from -1/3^rd to as much as minus 3 stops if you just want a silhouette with rim lighting (you’ll need a dark background to make this work) and 2) to switch your white balance to shade or a similar manual Kelvin setting. This will enhance the reds and yellows and produce a “Velvia effect”. Of course you can do this on the computer as well but it is always more rewarding to get it right in-camera.

4)      These two Masai Giraffes walking on the horizon. This is an example of being able to recognize the potential of digital photography. The sky was overcast – almost white – and the Giraffes would have needed plenty of overexposure to reveal their details. Instead I deliberately underexposed with the intention of rendering them as silhouettes for conversion to a high key monochrome image. The sky was a dull, off-white which has been given some added plus exposure during post processing, to turn it white. Bingo – a pleasing image out of nothing.

Meanwhile the migration was in its final throes with river crossing still occurring on a daily basis.

However, I was much less interested in the river crossings than the approach to the river by the Wildebeest and Zebras. Unlike in August, I had bought my rock cams and while the casings still need some modifications, my new wireless triggers worked much better than the previous ones that I used in the Serengeti in May. The result was increasingly improved images. As I have noted before, this is a very hit or miss (heavily weighted to the latter) activity, requiring large amounts of patience – will the animals pass by/over the rock casings which have been laid down well in advance of the anticipated direction of the animals? And while it is exhilarating when they do so, part of you also has your heart in your mouth as one misdirected hoof from an adult Zebra has the potential to destroy the casings and/or severely damage your camera and lens. Indeed during one stampede of several hundred animals, both casings were sent sprawling with the cameras unceremoniously ejected. Fortunately no damage was done.

And this one, that was almost a winner (need to set the manual focusing distance a little closer next time!)

I tried using the rock cams in a few other situations. While driving away from the river one day, I noticed a Crowned Plover precariously sitting on three eggs right next to the dirt track down which numerous vehicles were travelling to and from the river. We withdrew about 20 meters, pulled over to the side of the road and observed the brid for 20 minutes. Every time a vehicle would go by (neither the driver or the passengers in any of the vehicles noticed her), she would raise her wings. This gave me an idea, so approaching slowly, I placed the rock cam about a foot and half from her. She made no attempt to rise and leave the eggs when I did this. We then retreated and as the next few vehicles passed, I would press the wireless trigger. As she already had enough aggrevation with the speeding vehicles, I did not want to stress her any more and so removed the rock cam after a few minutes. It won’t win any awards with the feet and wings cut-off while the mid-day lighting is horrible, but it is still an interesting picture of a bird that ordinarily would never allow itself to be photographed with a wide-angled lens.

On my last morning we came upon a male Lion feeding on a Wildebeest carcass. I was able to place the rock cam 10m away without the Lion noticing. Too far away to photograph on the kill, the hope was that he would walk in the direction of the camera after finishing his meal. Unfortunately he did the complete opposite, dragging the carcass further away before eventually sauntering off away from the camera. However, by now a posse of vultures and Marabou Storks had gathered a short distance away, ready to move in and clean up as soon as the Lion left. This they duely did, with this Marabou pausing briefly to check out the strange rock like object on the ground.

As the carrion descended on the carcass, the Lion, in a fit of annoyance, made a half-hearted charge in their direction. This was enough to send the scavangers (and flies!) skywards, fortunately in the direction of the camera.

After a week in the Mara, I headed back to Nairobi where I took a private charter up to Lake Turkana. Joining me were Ken and Michelle Dyball (www.pulseafricansafaris.com), two talented wildlife photographers from Australia who I had invited along. They spend several months each year self-driving in Namibia and the Mara and have had some amazing experiences. Ken’s beautiful and rare picture of a Caracal in a tree received a highly commended award in the Black & White section of this year’s BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year.

As our plane was late taking off, we had no real time for any aerial photography on the way up apart from a very brief minute or two when we were able to open the door on one side of the plane just as the sun was setting behind the hills ringing Lake Logipi.

After a night in Loiyangalani on the South East shore of Lake Turkana, we were in the air early the next morning, heading across the Lake and up its western shore before landing at a dusty airstrip outside the small town of Kalokol. From there we made our way to the shore of Ferguson’s Gulf where after inevitable delays we boarded a small motor boat to make the 45 minute trip to the volcanic shores of Central Island. I had been asked by a UK based film company to make a recce of the island to determine whether there was any interesting wildlife behavior to be filmed. Without giving too much away, the answer is largely no, although there is one potential item of interest. More on this possibly over the next few months.

After a quick lunch back at Loiyangalani, we headed for Lake Logipi. I have seen this seasonal lake in many guises – from almost completely dry last year to near full two years ago. With the abundant rains this year in April and May, the lake currently has plenty of water – although it never reaches a depth of more than a foot or two.

Arriving towards late afternoon, we were greeted with the wondrous sight of thousands of Lesser Flamingos thronging the shallow waters. It is hard to put into words just how incredibly beautiful this lake is when conditions are right. The combination of the Flamingos, the perfect cloud reflections on the mirror surface and the algae infused colours of the lake bed, visible underneath the surface, make for a stunning spectacle that really does take one’s breath away. Depending on the orientation of our plane to the water’s surface and the sun, the lake bed is a constantly changing kaleidoscope of colours which also produces optical illusions of apparent hill like features beneath the surface even though the lake bed is completely flat.

After Logipi, we headed down the equally spectacular Seguta Valley with its initial flat, wide, alluvial pan, interspersed with numerous seasonal rivers and streams giving way to a drier environment dotted with ancient volcanic features.

No, not a Wildebeest calf, but 8lbs of female Homo sapiens. Amaya Lana Mckenzie was born 13 days ago after putting mum through 46 hours of labour. All good now and we will be looking to take her on some of our wildencounters trips soon. 

 As domestic duties are curtailing my own travels for a few weeks, I thought I would post 16 of my favourite images from the last 18 months – about the time I began to travel on a more regular basis. I say favourite, but if you ask me tomorrow, I’m sure I would give you 16 entirely different images. Anyway, hope you enjoy them. 

1. November 17, 2009 will go down as the single greatest day of photography that I have had the privilege to experience. Blue sky, T-shirt weather, surrounded by hundreds of Emperor Penguins and their adorable chicks, all set against a breathtaking backdrop of ice and snow – it doesn’t get any better than this. The actual image is an iconic one and I have more original images from the trip but even the most seasoned of wildlife photographers would have pressed the shutter when these four came together.

2. Just south of Lake Turkana in Northern Kenya is a landscape from another world. Punctuated by an endless series of volcanic structures, it is an inhospitable environment of searing heat. Yet in the caustic waters of Lake Logipi, life flourishes with the seasonal lake periodically home to thousands of Lesser Flamingos. This image was taken from a small Cessna with the doors removed, last September,  when a prolonged drought had reduced the lake to a few isolated pools of water.

3. China’s culture of eating wildlife or using their parts in traditional Chinese medicine has meant that it has killed off pretty much all of its non-avian wildlife. However, China does contain areas of outstanding scenic beauty. The Jiuzhaigou Nature Reserve in Northern Sichuan province is arguably the jewel in the crown especially during the fall months. I have lots of wide angle images of the fall foliage reflections on the astounding aqua marine lakes, but this image is arguable my favorite from the Reserve. I like the painterly feel to the image and the way the colours blend into and swirl around each other.

4. I love to show wildlife in the context of its environment and this is also a classic case of less is more. I spent many hours in the numbing cold on the edge of this field which attracts large numbers of Japanese Red Crowned Cranes in winter due to supplemental grain that is left out for the birds. In the month of February the Cranes engage in highly ritualized and acrobatic courtship dances and for most photographers this is the main attraction. I have a number of nice images showing this behavior but I still prefer the stark simplicity of this image.

5. A straightforward portrait shot made by the flat light, uniform background and the Cheetah’s bloody face. Normally I would give this type of image a bit more space around the edges but I wanted to show as much detail in the face as possible. On the one level this shows the beauty of the Cheetah; on the other, the violence that exists in the natural world.

6. Lake Natron and its surroundings in Northern Tanzania share many of the traits found at Logipi in Northern Kenya: harsh, dry, brutally hot and waters so corrosive that they pose a physical danger to the touch of a human. Normally, much of the lake contains water with a depth of no more than a few feet while regular Spirulina algae blooms turn the salt crusted waters a vivid violet colour. However, during the rainy season, the lake fills up, the algae wither and the Flamingos depart. On this overcast day in early May 2010, the waters were rendered a dark grey, bordering on black with just enough light to reflect the clouds above onto the mirror like lake waters. Shooting again from a small Cessna I was lucky to find a few remaining Flamingos gliding over the monochromatic surface.

7. Adult lions are for the most part, fairly boring. Occasionally they may hunt during daylight hours but they spend up to 18 hours a day sleeping. The vast majority of their activity takes place under the cover of darkness, away from the obtrusive lenses of pesky photographers. For adult females at least, this all changes when they have young cubs. A juvenile lion’s life is all about exploration, play and an ongoing struggle with its siblings for suckling rights. A mother’s tail is treated as an irresistible play thing. Here I managed to capture the “decisive moment” as the cub rose on its hind legs to sink its small but already sharp teeth into the flailing appendage.

8. It’s been called the greatest wildlife spectacle in the natural world and having witnessed the event in each of the last 14 years; it’s hard to argue with this assessment. Perhaps the most dramatic of the numerous proceedings that characterize the migration are the river crossings especially when the migration is forced to run the gauntlet of swollen waters populated by voracious Nile Crocodiles which often grow to nightmarish proportions. The individual in this particular image is a relative youngster of modest size and thankfully for the alarmed Wildebeest, proved unsuccessful in this attempt.

9. Indonesia’s Kalimantan rainforest is probably the most unforgiving environment that I have spent any prolonged period of time in. A lasting memory is of being permanently soaked in sweat and covered in insect bites. Despite the uncomfortable conditions, it has also been one of the most rewarding photographically, with this mother and impossibly cute baby tolerating my close presence for almost an hour. If you ever want a quick fire introduction to the wanton destruction caused by the palm oil and logging industries, then visit Kalimantan. The Orangutan is barely clinging on in the face of an alarming loss of habitat almost entirely caused by these two industries.

10. Almost certainly the most intense and adrenaline charged few hours of photography I have had took place in a remote atoll pass in Tahiti this summer. Spawning fish aggregations occur in many locations around the globe but few can match the size of the ones that I observed at this location nor do they contain the attendant predation displayed by the numerous Grey Reef and Pointed Nose Sharks. Obtaining decent images is difficult but just to have witnessed this event was an incredible experience on every level.

11. Ask me to name my two favorite wildlife destinations and it would be a toss-up between the Masai Mara and Midway Atoll. Difficult (and expensive!) to get to, this small speck of land in the Northern Pacific provides a safe haven for much of the year to almost two million seabirds. Unlike most of the world’s premier wildlife destinations, you can, if you choose, be on your own for the whole day surrounded in all directions by thousands of ridiculously tame birds. Laysan and Black-Footed Albatrosses are the most numerous species but my favorites are the White Terns.  The close approach of the birds means that wide-angle lenses come to the fore. This image was taken at a focal length of 26mm, using a touch of hand held, off-camera, fill flash but is really made by the addition in the background of not only five Laysan Albatrosses but also a Red-Footed Booby.

12. Oxpeckers enjoy a symbiotic relationship with Buffalos. The Oxpeckers get to feed off ticks and flies that plague the Buffalos who in turn are happy to be rid of them. With their distinctive red and yellow bills, the Oxpeckers hop up and down the Buffalos safe in the knowledge that they are welcome guests. They are not easy to photograph as they rarely stay still for long. I like the vertical format of this image; the Oxpecker in a mid-air hop and the docile expression on the Buffalo’s face.

13. What’s not to love about Japan? From its people to its food, to its time honored culture and customs, it has to be one of the world’s top destinations to visit (ok, so you have to pay a little more – but it’s worth it). Eastern Hokkaido in winter contains a treasure trove of wildlife wonders laid out on a canvas of scenic splendor. A visit to frozen Lake Kussharo is a highlight with its large migrant population of Whooper Swans. These four were captured walking in near perfect synchronization with plenty of room given to the spectacular backdrop.

14. Kids, don’t try this in the bush. I’d like to tell you I was doing a Steve Irwin (cricky!), lying on the ground facing an onrushing Wildebeest but the truth is that I was safely ensconced in a vehicle 30m away. The image was taken using a wireless trigger attached to a camera hidden inside a casing disguised as a rock. This is a frustrating mode of photography to pursue as so much is left to chance and you have no control over the behavior of the animal or composition while exposure and focusing have to be guessed at in advance. I have lots of misses, but occasionally it works out.

15. Taken the day previous to the Flamingo image, we had suffered slate grey skies for the duration of our aerial photography trip. As we headed back towards the Kenyan border, the clouds began to part and late afternoon sunshine valiantly emerged. With Mt.Shompole in the background, the glassy lake surface produced incredible reflections of the clouds and sky, at times making it difficult to distinguish water from sky. Indeed this phenomenon has caused inexperienced pilots to misjudge their altitude resulting in a number of light aircraft crashes into the lake over the years.

16. This is Keekei, a remarkable female Cheetah that regularly used the top of our vehicle as a vantage point to spot potential prey and predators. Shortly after this image was taken, she removed a pair of sunglasses from Paveena’s head and then began to roughly lick her hair. Enraptured, I failed to take any photos.

I recently made a brief one week visit to the Masai Mara with a colleague from work. No rock cams this time as this is very much an individual pursuit involving long hours of waiting and no small measure of patience, more often than not culminating in frustrating results. As this was my friend’s first visit to the Mara, I wanted to show him what all the fuss about the Mara is during migration season. After a slow start, our luck turned towards the end of the week with a particularly unique sighting.

The Mara in August through October is all about the Wildebeest migration. In a good year, well over a million of these awkward looking herbivores spill into the Mara accompanied by equally impressive numbers of Zebras and other grazers. The distribution of local rains in the Northern Serengeti and the Mara is generally the key factor determining when the herds arrive and in what numbers.

This year the migration arrived unusually early – in June. However, the size of the herds so far has fallen short of previous years and as I write this, I would estimate that less than half of the entire migration has entered the Mara. Still, the migration is in a constant state of flux and a few days of heavy rains in the Mara could change all this.

The main river crossing points adjacent to the Serena Lodge are proving disappointing this year. Firstly, most have involved crossings into the Mara Triangle – i.e. away from our vantage point (you always want the herds coming towards you). In addition, a mass drowning at the aptly named Cul-De-Sac crossing has meant that the waters of the main crossing points are littered with carcasses. As a result the Nile Crocodiles are paying little attention to the herds as they traverse the river. Moreover, with the waters swollen from abundant rains earlier in the year, the few attacks that do take place are over in a few seconds with victims quickly drowned.

 In the image below, a Topi is shown trying to find the exit point amid the impassable vertical banks at Cul-De-Sac.

Meanwhile though, the crossings have been a little more productive down in the South Mara. Not only have there been more crossings from the Triangle into the conservancy areas but the steeper banks at the key crossing points at this stretch of the Mara River provide a more photographic spectacle relative to the corresponding points in the Northern Mara.

There are fewer Crocs in the South Mara vs. the multitudes at the main crossing points but we did see this attempt at the bank as these Zebras were drinking prior to crossing.

Not more than five minutes later, we saw the same Croc take a young Wildebeest from the exact same spot – alas, no good pictures.

As we were driving away from a crossing one morning, we spotted a Hyena running at full tilt but with a dark object hanging from its jaws. At first we thought it was a piece of Wildebeest carcass but after following it and getting closer, it quickly became apparent that it was in fact a small Hyena pup. Adult Hyenas often carry young pups from den to den as recently born pups are apt to wander off in the wrong direction out in the open where they are also vulnerable to various predators, especially Lions. Sadly, it also became evident that this pup was dead. Why the mother was running so frantically and how the pup died, remain a mystery. Perhaps the mother gave birth to a still born pup, perhaps it was killed by a rival Hyena and perhaps the mother’s frantic running was simply due stress. Everyday in the Mara one sees behavior which cannot be explained and which one can only speculate on.

 I did manage to take this close-up image as the Hyena ran parallel to our vehicle with the lifeless pup hanging gently from her jaws.

Cheetahs are the rarest of the big cats in the Mara, but this year there are unusually large numbers of these graceful felines on the grass plains. In a small area on the way down to a conical hill known as “Lookout”, we found: 1) “the three boys” – three adult male Cheetah brothers with exceptional hunting skills who have been swaggering across a large area of the Mara for the last three years; 2) the famed “Mrembo” female Cheetah who currently has a large sub-adult cub in tow; 3) a solitary female Cheetah; 4) a first time Cheetah mother who appears to wander aimlessly across the plains trailed by her two, often exhausted,  young cubs and 5) best of all, an experienced female cheetah with six (yes six!) small cubs. We only found this menagerie on our last day and the harsh light of the middle of the day prevented us taking any decent images but while the odds are slim, if she can keep these cubs alive, they will surely provide millions of unforgettable photo opportunities for the Mara’s numerous visitors.

Although Lion numbers have decreased significantly across Africa over the last three decades, the Mara remains a key stronghold for the species with several prides continuing to thrive.

Early one overcast morning, we found a young Wildebeest that had lost its mother and had become separated from the herds. We followed it for several minutes as it approached a series of Crotton bushes leading to the banks of the Talek River. This area is home to a large, dispersed pride of Lions that we had seen in this exact area the previous day. Sure enough, we soon spotted three adult Lionesses resting under some small bushes. At first it appeared the Wildebeest would avoid them but inexplicably it changed direction and doubled back on a path that would take it directly past the Lionesses. We positioned our vehicle in sight of both predator and prey. As the Wildebeest came into view, one of the Lionesses inched forward, assuming a classic, low stalking position. As soon as the Wildebeest had jogged past it, the Lioness exploded out of the bushes. The Wildebeest veered sharply, galloping desperately towards our vehicle with the Lioness quickly gaining on it. The chase, which lasted no more than a few seconds, took place so close to our vehicle that our long lenses were rendered useless.

A trip to its back legs sent the Wildebeest sprawling in a cloud of dust. As soon as it regained its footing, the Lioness was on its throat. We just had time to reposition the vehicle, switch to a shorter lens and fire off a few shots before the Wildebeest’s legs gave way and it seemingly succumbed to the Lionesses’ death choke.

You always witness these events with mixed feelings – elation on the one hand at witnessing what is still a rarely seen event and being in the right position to get some decent images, but on the other hand, sadness and sympathy for the poor Wildebeest. In this case, these emotions were amplified as the Lioness did not in fact kill the Wildebeest. Instead it waiting for the rest of the pride to arrive at which point it released the Wildebeest to the sub-adult cubs. Lacking experience, they were unable to put the Wildebeest out of its misery and it was left to the other adult Lionesses in the pride to eventually end its suffering.

On the subject of suffering, we were resting up one day under a large Acacia tree in the mid-day heat when a solitary, limping Wildebeest ambled by. Through our binoculars we could see that it had broken a leg. How this had happened is unclear although most likely it would have occurred on the steep and often slippery banks leading to/from the Mara River. Whatever the cause, its prognosis was a near 100% certainty of death within the next 24 hours. Without the ability to run it would surely be picked off by Lions, Leopard, Hyena or even the three Cheetah brothers.

We drove over to take a closer look. It made no effort to move from the partial shade that it had found so opening the vehicle door and with a camera in hand and arms extended, I was able to take this wide-angled shot.

Ostriches are common enough in the Mara but are always highly photogenic. We found this male sitting on an egg so he was easy to approach as we knew it would take a lot to spook him from his incubation duties. This is a somewhat unusual angle of the long necked bird. Ideally, I would have preferred both eyes visible but I still like the hairs on its neck and the single, red eye.

Leopards are the most numerous of the big cats in the Mara but the hardest to see. This is partly because they are most active at night but mostly because they are extremely secretive and shy creatures. However, the Mara has typically always had up to a handful of Leopards that are highly tolerant of vehicles and relaxed at showing themselves during the day. In years gone by, one such Leopard was the Bella, star of the Big Cat Diary series. She in turn produced a daughter, Olive, who is also incredibly comfortable with vehicles. Olive has now produced her own offspring, one of which is a young male called Paja.

Although Paja will eventually grow to a size that will make him considerably larger than female Leopards, he is currently a little smaller than his mother. He also still lacks the necessary hunting skills to regularly take down the standard Leopard quarry of Impalas, Gazelles and Wildebeest.

While he is still occasionally sharing his mother’s kills, he is now perfecting his hunting abilities by focusing on smaller and sometimes highly unusual prey. In particular, he seems to have developed a taste for Monitor Lizards.

For those of you who have not seen a Monitor Lizard, it looks like a smaller version of a Komodo Dragon. However, adults can reach lengths of five feet and have a distinctive upper set of sharp teeth set amongst powerful jaws.  They are carnivorous and recent studies suggest that they may be capable of producing venom.

Late one afternoon our guide received a call on his two way radio that a Leopard had been spotted not far away killing a Monitor Lizard. We quickly drove to the spot, just in time to see Paja carrying the now deceased Lizard up a grassy bank.

Two days later, the same event was repeated. This time we had been following Paja as she flitted in and out of the Crotton bushes, in the process making a number of unsuccessful attempts on Spring Hares and various birds. She then disappeared behind some rocks set within a dry river bed. At this point we thought we were in for a long wait given that Leopards, as with all the big cats, can spend many diurnal hours simply doing nothing.

After approximately 30 minutes, we became aware of a commotion behind some rocks in a position some distance from where we had last seen him. Shortly after, he emerged with an enormous Lizard clamped between his jaws. With pulses racing, he then answered our prayers and dragged the still struggling reptile onto a group of exposed rocks approximately 30 meters from our vehicle. Although clearly the worse for wear, the Lizard was still struggling with its jaws periodically opening and closing and its tail thrashing around.  This only ceased after a prolonged bite from Peja to the Lizard’s throat. After a period of licking and almost playful biting, Peja eventually dragged the now motionless Lizard to the top of a concealed rock well away from our vehicle.

 It was an exhilarating experience and will go down as one of my best ever wild encounters. While you never know for certain, I doubt I will witness such behavior again.  

On our last night while driving back to camp, we found two male Lions lying in some long grass. Occasionally they would raise their heads and this alerted a small herd of nearby Zebras to their presence. With the Zebras focused on the Lions, we were able to drive up reasonably close to them with the added bonus that they were all motionless and also looking the same way. With the camera balanced on a beanbag and using filters to balance the darker foreground with the lighter background, I was able to take this simple but pleasing image. I really like the composition and the hint of pastel colours in the sky.

It is rare that the Mara fails to deliver something special over the course of a week and hopefully I will have more luck when I return in late October.

I’ve had some pretty amazing wildlife encounters in my time, but I can safely say that all have been eclipsed by what I recently witnessed in Tahiti. This was an incredible trip, one that I hope to repeat again, even if it had a somewhat unfortunate ending.

Divers visiting Tahiti, typically do so for one reason. It is home to one of the world’s healthiest shark populations. At a time when sharks are being massacred globally on a scale that that has seen a reduction of 80% of all large shark species over the last 50 years and which sees over 100m sharks slaughtered each year, Tahiti has done an admiral job in protecting its marine life.

Although Tahiti enjoys a high degree of autonomy, it is still an overseas territory of France and the influence of France is all prevalent – from the French language which is universally spoken to the baguettes and croissants that are standard breakfast fare. Were it not for the coconut palms and the aqua marine lagoons, you could be forgiven for thinking that you were deep in Provence.

For developing countries, one of the positives of having a rich, developed nation as your benefactor is that they typically ensure good governance with a lid kept on corruption while the environment is usually well protected. Marine conservation tends to be non-existent or low down the totem pole in most developing countries and more often than not they have succumbed to short term monetary incentives offered by the likes of China and Taiwan who are anxious to gain access to the fish stocks of these nations. Once they gain entry, the impact, especially on the larger pelagic species, is nearly always rapid and devastating. Sharks are particularly vulnerable. Demand for their fins continues to grow as China becomes ever richer while supply is limited by the slow reproduction rates of sharks – the gestation period for many species is longer than that of humans.

Twenty years ago when I was first diving, it was possible to see abundant shark numbers in the waters of many Asian countries including Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. Today the sharks in these waters are virtually gone. Other than the occasional migratory species, I sincerely doubt that there is even a single adult shark left in the South China Sea. Certainly, I have yet to see a shark in the offshore waters of Hong Kong and Southern China despite regularly being in the company of spear fisherman – usually a sure fire way of attracting sharks from a wide distance.  Healthy shark populations are now confined almost exclusively to the waters of developed nations where there is adequate protection. Indeed, the majority of shark photos that one sees in today’s publications come from one small destination in the Northern Bahamas.   

Anxious to avoid New Zealand’s Auckland airport, I chose to travel to Tahiti via Tokyo. Although this involves a bit of a detour coming from Hong Kong, Auckland has the world’s toughest hand luggage restrictions. As I always try to hand carry one underwater camera system as insurance against possible lost checked-in luggage, Auckland is top of my list of airports to avoid. Last year when I used the airport, something like 80% of passengers had their hand luggage weighed. Anything over 7kgs and you were forced to go back downstairs to the main check-in area. As far as I could tell, there were absolutely no exceptions to this rule and they would not tolerate any repacking of photo gear into the photo vest that I was wearing. Meanwhile, 300 lb Tongan passengers passed me at regular intervals. Were any of them weighed? Of course not. By contrast, the Hong Kong and Tokyo airports are a breeze and I had no problems with my 20+ kg hand luggage. 

After a 12 hour overnight flight on Air Tahiti Nui (not bad), I arrived in the capital, Papeete, where I caught a 1 hour flight to the atoll of Rangiroa. In the late 80s and early 1990s, Rangiroa earned a reputation as one of world’s great shark diving destinations, famed for its “walls” of Grey Reef and Silvertip sharks. With expectations high, Rangiroa was however, a big letdown. While the currents were unfavourable on a number of dives – i.e. the currents were outgoing through the passes from the lagoon into the ocean creating poor water visibility – meaning that some of our dives had to be done away from the passes on the outside reefs, shark sightings were far and few between. I was told there were large numbers at 45-50 meters. However, even if one were to use a gas mixture of say 24-25% oxygen/75-76% nitrogen, the amount of time one could spend at such depths without making an extremely long decompression stop, would be limited. Moreover, when I checked with some other divers who had been down to these depths, I was told that yes, there were more sharks below 40m, although not huge numbers and more importantly, they were not coming close enough for acceptable photos. As a consequence, I didn’t bother making any of these deeper dives. The only highlight were several playful dolphins that showed up on a number of the dives.

And so after three days of average diving in Rangiroa, I headed for another, remoter atoll. Having been to this atoll last year, I knew what to expect and boy did it deliver.

Like Rangiroa, this atoll is roughly rectangular in shape and is composed of two narrow strips of land with a width of no more than a few hundred meters but a total length of 60kms. Encompassed within the atoll is a large lagoon with an area of over 1,100kms. The atoll is broken by two passes through which millions of gallons of water flow each day – typically there are two outgoing and incoming currents per day. It is in these passes that most of the marine life activity and behaviour take place.

The lagoon side of the island is spectacularly beautiful with breathtaking beaches and turquoise waters and,  especially at the south end, is dotted with small, postcard perfect motus, or islands. The reefs on the lagoon side are ideal for snorkelling and are home to an abundance of small and large reef dwellers including this increasingly rare Napoleon Wrasse in the second image. 

The reef side of the atoll is much wilder with high surf as a constant feature. The following image shows the reef side of the atoll at dusk on a day of high winds and intermittent rain.

I have noted that Tahiti is famed for its large shark population. But there is another, rarely seen marine event. It happens for only a few days each year, at a few select destinations in Tahiti. Unlike say the Sardine run off the coast of South Africa, it is an occurrence that is not well known by the diving community globally. This event is the massive spawning aggregations of Groupers and Surgeonfish.

Last year, by pure chance, I stumbled upon this event when I made a one day expedition to the more remote of the two passes. This year I made sure that I was based close to the pass so that I could dive it every day. The image below shows the lagoon at night and was taken outside my hut with the scene illuminated by a dazzlingly bright full moon.

Large numbers of Camouflage Groupers begin to gather five or six days before the full moon. In the days prior to the full moon, the Groupers are extremely placid and approachable to the extent that you can just about touch them. It is possible to lie down amongst them and have the fish swimming within a foot or two of you. Visibility tends to be good to excellent at this time.

The Groupers come together in a location that is not far from a “Wall of Sharks” dive site. Literally hundreds of sharks – mainly Grey Reef, Silvertip and Pointed Nose Sharks patrol the wall, typically swimming into the current.

As the Groupers come together, some of these sharks will lazily make their way over to the aggregation, cruising amongst the fish but showing no signs of aggression. The Groupers appear completely unconcerned by the sharks and make only very languid movements to get out of the way.

As the day of the full moon approaches, the Grouper numbers increase. As far as the eye can see – and visibility is still a good 30m – Groupers blanket the bottom of the reef, at depths of 25-35m.

On the day of the full moon (the image below shows a full moon rising over a shallow lagoon on the reef side of the atoll), everything changes.

On my first morning dive, water visibility was down to a few meters -not because I was diving on an outgoing current, but because the water was thick with Grouper spawn. Gone was the placid behaviour exhibited by the Groupers on previous days. It was replaced  instead by frenetic activity as groups of four or five Groupers would burst up from the reef floor, releasing their eggs in a thick milky cloud.

Meanwhile the spawning activity attracts large numbers of Grey Reef and Pointed Nose Sharks. Unlike the previous days when they showed little interest in the Groupers, they were now firmly fixated on catching and eating the Groupers. Unfortunately the sharks move so quickly that while you can see this activity, it is virtually impossible to catch with a still camera.

Joining the Groupers in the spawning frenzy were large numbers of Yellowfin Surgeonfish whose spawn clouded the water still further.

When I made my second dive later in the morning, the Grouper spawning had died down and the visibility had improved. However, there was a significant increase in Surgeonfish spawning activity. Not only was this continuing to draw sharks in prodigious numbers but large schools of Bluestreak Fusiliers were also attracted to the spawning commotion.

At no point did I ever feel concerned about the behaviour of the sharks. During the spawning they were very one-tracked with their focus exclusively on the spawning fish. Indeed both during the spawning and on the wall of sharks, getting close enough to the sharks was the main problem as they would tend to veer off when at a distance of 8-10 feet from me – close enough for most but for a photographer with  wide angle lenses, there is no such thing as being too close to a shark.

I should note that because of the current changes, it is only possible to do two dives per day at this site and with peak activity at fairly deep depths and even allowing for the use of a 32% or 34% Nitrox mix, your bottom time at these depths isn’t more than 20-25 minutes. So adding up your two dives you only have 40-50 minutes to get your photos on the day of peak activity.

By the next day, the Groupers had completely ceased spawning. The Surgeonfish however, continued to spawn with attendant Fusiliers and Sharks.

By the following day all spawning had ended and most of the Groupers had vanished. At this stage I moved to the other Pass. If the currents are right, the North pass can have spectacular shark numbers and exciting drift dives, one of which culminates in a bowl shaped canyon where sizeable schools of Goatfish, Bigeyes, Soldierfish and Snappers gather. Nearby there are small caves with White Tip Reef Sharks, Snappers, Soldier and Squirrelfish.

On my second last day of diving, I made three fairly deep dives in strong currents. On the last dive, anxious to get a few last images , I lost the rest of the group on the ascent and safety stop. I surfaced some distance away from the dive tender but they eventually managed to locate me – I had stupidly left my orange safety sausage at the dive centre – a big no, no when diving in strong currents.

On the way back to shore, I noticed some soreness in the knuckle above my right forefinger. I didn’t think anything of it as I had experienced something similar on previous dive trips which I put down to muscle/joint fatigue from holding a camera for prolonged periods in strong currents – my underwater housing/strobes are negatively buoyant.

I went back to my accommodation, had a drink with some other divers (non-alcohol), grabbed some dinner and went to my room. After lying down for a few minutes, I thought I sensed a very minor numbness in my right foot. My right knuckle was still slightly sore. I now began to wonder if I had some mild decompression sickness, commonly known as “the bends”. When you dive, nitrogen enters the bloodstream. As you ascend, most of this nitrogen clears, but if you ascend too quickly or do not spend sufficient time at shallower depths to expel the nitrogen slowly, you can be left with nitrogen bubbles and/ or excess nitrogen in the bloodstream. For the last 15-20 years, computers (carried on the wrist) have been available to divers to ensure that they manage this process correctly. My dive profiles had been such that I had not exceeded no-decompression limits and I had made adequate safety stops on all dives but I began to wonder if I should have spent more time on the ascent at 15-10m or even if I should have done an even longer safety stop at 5m on the last dive given that the previous two dives had involved fairly extended periods at between 20-25m. I was also conscious that the surface interval between the 2^nd and 3^rd dive had been quite short (1 hour). I also remembered drinking very little water during the day and feeling quite tired between dives – these are also factors that more easily facilitate decompression sickness.

On the other hand, I had done many dives, especially early in my diving life with worse dive profiles and no ill consequences, and I should add that I have made close to 2,000 dives over the last 20 years and have never had any decompression issues.

For several minutes, I debated what to do. Was I just being paranoid? Decompression sickness can be a very serious condition resulting in paralysis or even death, but such eventualities are nearly always preceded  by a diver making a very rapid ascent with immediate severe symptoms on the surface such as loss of consciousness, vomiting, dizziness, severe nausea, impaired motor functions etc. I did not have any of these. However, joint pain and numbness are secondary symptoms and I had these, albeit on a very minor scale. I admit to having a morbid fascination with decompression sickness and have read hundreds of case studies. When I talk with dive guides and dive boat captains, I always get around to asking them about their experiences with divers who have had decompression sickness.

Eventually, I concluded that it was better to be safe than sorry so I contacted my dive guide who came to collect me. We then made our way to a nearby clinic which by coincidence was run by his wife. As expected she immediately had me breathing oxygen. She then called the main hospital in the capital, Papeete (on another island). After a long conversation, in French, with a decompression sickness specialist, it was decided that it would be best if I receive immediate treatment in a decompression chamber at the hospital. This would mean that a plane would have to be sent for me to make the 1.5 hour journey to the main island.

Of course at this stage I could not help but think I had overreacted. I also felt a little embarrassed that a major operation was being launched on my behalf which might in fact be pointless. I asked the nurse if a medivac was really necessary but she replied that once the hospital specialist had made the decision, there was no turning back: “it is zee French protocol”.

After sticking an IV into my left arm, I then had one hour to pack up all my stuff. When it was determined that I would be flying out, two of the dive guides had gone to my room to retrieve all my gear. I had warned them that this in itself would be no easy task with bits of camera and underwater camera gear scattered all over my room. Commendably, they managed to get everything to me in several bags, but of course I needed to dismantle all the housings, strobes, arms etc. This required quite an effort given my restricted movement with the IV hanging out of my arm.

Five minutes after finishing (it was now 2am), we received word that the plane had arrived. Carrying the IV bag, the nurse drove me to the now deserted airstrip. I walked onto the small plane – just big enough for me to lie down and for a nurse and doctor to be seated. The flight passed uneventfully for the first hour at which point, I realised that I desperately needed to pee. Coupled with the water I had been guzzling, the IV fluids had filled my bladder to bursting point. Being a small plane, there was no bathroom on board, so what to do?

Fortunately or unfortunately, I had experienced a similar situation some years earlier when I had taken a three hour charter from Northern Australia to a remote location in Papua New Guinea. Travelling with two companions, we had consumed several beers prior to boarding. The resulting dilemma was solved as follows: one small plastic empty water bottle was located between the three of us. After one of us had finished, the pilot had to descend to lower altitudes and partially open one of the small side windows in the flight deck in order to empty the contents of the bottle. Not only was it necessary to perform this manoeuvre several times but as you can probably picture, some of the contents were blown back into the cabin. We had a good laugh afterwards although it was clear that when we landed the pilot did not share our sense of humour. Fortunately, there was no need to empty the bottle mid-flight this time and I managed the tricky exercise – kneeling down, back to the crew, IV still snaking out of my arm – without too much difficulty.

When the plane landed, an ambulance was waiting to whisk me to the nearby hospital. Within ten minutes I was in the cramped confines of the decompression chamber where I endured a three hour session with the compression in the chamber set at 18 meters. I say endured because although there was no discomfort relating to the pressure in the chamber, I had real trouble breathing from the oxygen mask that was clamped over my nose and mouth. I had to suck extremely hard to get a decent breath. I managed to get permission to loosen the mask very slightly which helped a little. But it was a long three hours and the discomfort with breathing made it impossible to sleep even though by the time the session ended it was 7am and I had had no sleep for the last 24 hours.

I should add at this stage that my symptoms – soreness in the knuckle of my right hand, slightly swollen and stiff fingers in the same hand and mild numbness in my right foot – were pretty much unchanged. This could mean either that the recompression process was having little or no effect (not uncommon with sensation type symptoms) or that in fact, I did not have decompression sickness.

After resting up in a hospital ward, I was back in the chamber six hours later for another two hour session, this time with the chamber set to 12m. Breathing was again an effort but I had bought a book this time to make the time pass a little quicker.

After spending the night in the hospital, my symptoms had dissipated considerably by the next morning with only some minor stiffness in my hand still evident. After being checked out by the medical staff I was told I was free to go. The main doctor noted that while he could not be certain, there was a good chance that I did not have decompression sickness. While my symptoms were consistent with decompression sickness, he said that in pretty much all cases where the symptoms were restricted to sensation ones, the soreness/stiffness/numbness would have been more widespread, e.g. down the whole of one’s right side.

I flew back to Hong Kong the next day with no incidents on the flights back. However, on waking on my first morning back in Hong Kong, I noticed that the top of my right arm and the lower part of my right leg were slightly numb. I went to a specialist the same day that put me through a whole series of motor and sensation tests. Everything turned out to be normal. As an additional precaution, I was sent for a brain MRI. Again, everything was normal (some relief to find out that I do indeed have a brain).

Since then my symptoms have almost disappeared. My hand and arm are now completely normal. The only symptom that I very occasionally experience is a minor tingling sensation in my right foot when I am sitting late at night. Hopefully this will pass with time.

Decompression sickness or not, the whole episode has certainly been a wake-up call to dive even more conservatively than before. Having had the dive profiles from my dive computer analysed, the conclusion was that while generally OK, I could probably afford to spend a little more time on the ascent at depths between 10-15m. In addition, I will be changing my Uwatech brand of dive computer to a Suunto one. I had noticed that while, for instance, my dive computer was telling me that I still had e.g. 5 minutes before exceeding no decompression limits, other divers on the same dive, who had been following a similar dive profile and who were using Suunto computers, were already five minutes into deco.

Paveena and I made a short trip to Morocco at the beginning of June, primarily to attend a friend’s wedding in the city of Marrakesh. The wedding was held in a beautiful Riad – essentially a large former courtyard residence that has been converted into a boutique hotel – owned and managed by a sister of  UK entrepreneur, Richard Branson. The Riad was comprised of a labyrinth of courtyards, gardens, pools, terraces and staircases. Hidden in a small, nondescript and dusty alley, the Riad proved to be a cool and soothing oasis to the chaos and blistering heat that lay outside its walls.

While Marrakech has an amazing souk (outdoor market) and some beautifully ornate mosques, the main one being a stone’s throw from the Riad, we didn’t feel like it was a place where one would want to spend a lot of time. A few relaxing days in the Riad and the odd trip or two to the souk was enough for us. Still, the wedding was lots of fun and aided by Marrakesh’s famed herbal substances, a good time was had by all.

After the wedding it was time to head south. Travelling in a 4×4 vehicle, we drove for the better part of a full day before reaching the town of Zagora. Along with several other members of the wedding party, we switched our mode of transport to camel late in the afternoon, arriving at a tented desert camp at nightfall. Unfortunately the camp was filled with other tourists and the usual tourist trappings – e.g. local dancers, and it was all a bit too contrived for us.

The next day we continued on our own, driving ever further south, before reaching the frontier town of M’Hamid in late afternoon. We were extremely grateful for the air-conditioning of our vehicle as the outside temperatures – in the high 40s c – were truly brutal.

Our destination was the sand dunes of Erg Chigaga on the southern border with Algeria. Shortly after M’Hamid, the road ended and it was time for a bone rattling, three hour off-road drive through a featureless, rocky desert. It was probably asking a bit much for Paveena, being six months pregnant; to endure this ordeal but she stuck it out with her usual stoic fortitude.

The drive took longer than expected and we arrived at our thankfully deserted camp with only 30 minutes of daylight left. Our camp was set among the dunes, a 40km stretch of golden Saharan sand with dunes of up 300m high. After another dinner of chicken tangine – we’ve both now had a lifetime’s fill of this dish – we walked a short distance from the camp to a spot where I wanted to make some night time images. For anyone who has been in the desert, with its total absence of light pollution, the stars that fill the night sky are spectacular. Unfortunately, a few clouds drifted into the frame while I was taking some long exposures which ruined the pictures but it was still a fantastic experience lying on the dunes in complete silence looking up at the millions white pinpricks that dotted the inky black sky.

As we made to head back to our camp, I realised that we had wandered further than I had originally thought. We became unsure of some of the landmarks that we had picked out with our torches on the way out and after about 15 minutes, we realised that we were lost. The compass function on my i-phone meant that I had a broad idea of the correct direction, but with minimal lighting in our camp, we realised that we could easily become hopelessly disorientated. While not a disaster as we would surely find the camp in daylight, neither of us particularly wanted to spend the night in the dunes away from the camp.

After ten minutes of mounting frustration, we climbed to the top of one of the higher dunes where we managed to pick out a sliver of light from a paraffin lamp. A big sigh of relieve was emitted simultaneously from both of us especially as we realized that the direction we had been walking would have taken us well past the camp.

Deserts are supposed to be cold or at least cool at night, but at close to midnight, the temperature had only dropped a little. Moreover, the mud walls and dark woollen fabric roofs of the tents acted as highly effective insulators, trapping in the day time heat and turning the insides of the tent into a baking oven. Sleeping inside was clearly impossible so we dragged our lumpy mattresses outside and slept under the stars.

The next morning, with temperatures pleasantly cool, I was up well before dawn, hiking some distance into the heart of the dunes. When asked why he liked the desert so much, T.E Lawrence (aka Lawrence of Arabia) replied “because it is clean”. Certainly, in the early morning and late afternoon when the low elevation of the sun creates flawless symmetrical patterns of light and shadow, it is hard to think of a cleaner and more perfectly simple landscape. It was this play between light and shadow that I wanted to capture. As the sun rose, the colours of the dunes also changed – from rose-gold to yellow-gold. Providing balance between the dunes was a mix of sun-bleached soft and hard sand.

While the following images were all taken within a two hour period – and it is virtually impossible to ever do justice to a new location in such a short time frame – I hope that they give some glimmer of the majestic beauty of the area.

Last year when I visited Seronera in the heart of the Serengeti in early May, I had incredible luck: almost no rain despite coinciding with the middle of the rainy season; virtually no other vehicles (a combination of the low season and the global economic downturn); three lionesses on a low kopje (a rocky outcropping) as a full moon rose behind them; an entire lion pride with eight extremely active cubs on an even lower kopje for two days; good leopard encounters; a lioness standing high in an acacia tree in perfect light; masses of elephants and decent sized herds of migrating wildebeest and zebras.

This year, it rained heavily for several hours almost every day; on three afternoons we limped our vehicle back to a workshop to repair faulty brakes/gearbox; no lions on the photogenic low lying kopjes of last year; a complete absence of leopards or tree climbing lions; a total count of just one elephant and while hardly crowded, there were still significantly more vehicles than last year.

The main consolation was the mother of all migrations. I have seen 14 years of wildebeest migrations and this is surely the largest. It bodes especially well for planned trips to Kenya’s Masai Mara in August and October when it looks like record numbers of wildebeest, zebras and other grazers will be hurling themselves into the swollen waters of the crocodile infested Mara River.

The dearth of opportunities to photograph the big cats or elephants meant that by necessity, the focus was on the migrating herds. In fact this suited me quite well as I was keen to try out my new “rock cams”. In summary, while I was able to get a few decent images, using these devices was mainly one of frustration and requires a very large dose of patience. Part of the problem was mechanical – the wireless triggers were fairly useless with a range of 20-25 meters at best (when I tested these indoors before the trip, the range was at least 50 meters). The cameras also need to be tilted upwards in order to avoid the ground dominating the bottom half of the picture. On top of this, it was almost impossible to anticipate the direction in which the herds would head. Unlike the Mara, where there are clearly defined approaches and exits from the Mara River, the Serengeti herds move in only a very general direction. I placed the shell encased cameras on the ground in the direction that the herds were headed, many, many times. On all but a handful of occasions they would change direction. On the few occasions that they passed over or close to the cameras I was then faced with the challenge of inching our vehicle close enough to the herds in order to get within the workable range of the triggers without spooking the animals away from the cameras. Lastly, I had to hope that when the herds were stampeding over the casings that the latter and more importantly, the cameras and lenses would not be damaged. While thankfully the cameras and lenses all survived intact, both casings were partially damaged.

Why put myself through all this trouble and frustration you may ask? Well, when you’ve been on c.30 trips to East Africa, you reach a stage where the onus becomes very much on trying to capture something unique or at least different. And I have to say, based on the strength of a handful of images; this type of photography is quite addictive. I have to be careful not to get completely blinded as that would be to miss potentially good opportunities using more traditional techniques, but I know that with perseverance, there are some unique and potentially outstanding images to be had. The following images give a hint of what the rock cams are capable of producing.

I now know the modifications that I need to make so I will be hoping for a better success rate when I visit the Mara in a few months.

When I am on safari, my days start early and I am always out by 5.30am. The following image was taken at 5.45am as a silvery crescent moon was sliding down from high in the inky night sky, past the acacia tree silhouettes to the dawn lit horizon.

The normal weather pattern each day was for relatively fine mornings with a build up of dark clouds in the early afternoon…

…followed by heavy afternoon rain before the sun would appear briefly late in the afternoon. With plenty of clouds still in the sky at sunset, I experienced a number of beautiful sunsets.

As always there were plenty of avian opportunities. As with the Lilac Breasted Roller, which is also extremely common, I never seem to tire of photographing Superb Starlings. This one was bathing in a muddy rain pool next to the workshop where we were repairing our vehicle one afternoon. And yes I know, the head turn is less than perfect…

Another less photographed bird that caught my eye was this immature Dark Chanting Goshawk (I am not entirely sure about the identification. If anyone reading this thinks otherwise, it would be much appreciated if they could let me know).

The trip was not totally devoid of big cats and late one afternoon we encountered this solitary Lioness on a small kopje surrounded by Wildebeest, on which she kept a watchful eye.

After eight days in the Serengeti, I headed back to Kenya in order to make a quick excursion up to Lake Turkana. However, after suffering through a drought for several years, the region is currently receiving record amounts of rainfall and on the day that I was supposed to fly up, the satellite map showed huge storms covering most of the area.

After consulting with my pilot, we decided that it was pointless to venture into these storms and instead chose to make two shorter aerial trips south to Lake Natron. After waiting for the best part of the day for the weather to clear up in Nairobi, we made the short journey down to the Lake. I had always wanted to fly around the intermittently active volcano, Oldenya Lengai, at the southern end of the lake in Tanzania. As it was, the views were less than perfect, with broken cloud surrounding the top of the volcano.

The sides of the mountain were covered with solidified ash and lava flows which have created some interesting patterns. Further down the mountain, moss has begun to form in some of the lava sculpted gullies.

Turning away from Lengai, we headed back north flying low along the western edge of the shore. In the late afternoon light, the clouds and a distant Mount Shompole were perfectly reflected off Lake Natron’s glassy surface.

After a night in Nairobi, we were back in the air the following morning heading again to Lake Natron. On the approach we flew over another of East Africa’s soda lakes, Lake Magadi, on the Kenyan side of the border. These lakes lie in the Great Rift Valley. During their formation, much of this valley was covered in volcanic ash, rich in sodium carbonate. Rainwater flowing down the slopes of the numerous volcanoes  formed  rivers, some of which were also fed by underground springs. These rivers picked up volcanic chemicals and salts and deposited them into the lakes. As a result of evaporation caused by searing air temperatures, the minerals and salts were concentrated into various sodium compounds. From the air, these compounds often show themselves in vivid red and rust colours.

With so much rain in the previous weeks, the preponderance of these colours had been diluted but in patches were still evident especially in the shallows along the lake shore.

Given the caustic mix of chemicals in the lakes it is surprising that their waters can sustain any life forms. But one microscopic creature positively thrives in these conditions –an algae called Spirulina. This is the principal food source of the Lesser Flamingo which in ideal dry conditions gathers in hundreds of thousands and sometimes into the millions.

The bountiful rainfall meant that the environment was less than perfect for the algae and hence the flamingos were limited to a few isolated congregations. Still, with the cloud cover reflected off the lake in monochromatic tones – further enhanced by black & white processing – this provided a beautiful canvas to offset the small groups of flying flamingos.

And so we headed back to civilisation, leaving the surreal landscapes, seemingly from another plant, behind. As we turned north, we passed a small herd of Zebra picking their way across the stark, featureless delta plains.