Wildlife and Nature
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South African Safari – Addo Elephant Park
I previously posted about Ironman South Africa last April. Well, naturally you don’t go all the way to South Africa for a sporting event and then go back home. Nope – safari time! There are a number of parks and reserves in and around Port Elizabeth, South Africa. To be honest, you don’t even have…
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Madikwe Game Reserve – One of South Africa’s Best Kept Secrets!
For most people, going on a safari is the trip of a lifetime. And there are numerous well-known game parks and reserves, in many African countries, where you can do just that. But if you decide to take the plunge and see the amazing animals and landscape most people only get to see in coffee…
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The strangest animal you’ve (probably) never seen!
Meet the bizarre, but wonderful aye-aye. It’s an odd nocturnal lemur with a kind of creepily long middle finger and a bizarre, wild and wide-eyed expression. We were lucky enough to see a few of these in the wild and thought we’d share them with you. By the way, did you know lemurs are primates?…
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Check Out my Entries for the B&H Wilderness Photo Contest!
B&H Photo (I really should own stock in that company, as much money as I send them) is hosting a Wilderness Photo Competition – and the grand prize(s) are safari trips to Namibia and Botswana. Yes, I’m sending mainly wildlife photos from Namibia – the irony is not lost on me. It wouldn’t do me…
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Short Film: Kinabatangan
I’ve been talking a lot about photography and vintage cameras on this blog, but originally this was all about video editing and production. This is the first “real” video I’ve done in some time – a short documentary film as opposed to some hastily thrown together clips. It’s based on our trip to the Malaysian…
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More Adventures in ‘Murr’ca
Today was an eventful day in our Western States RV Odyssey. For those just tuning in, we are touring Oregon, California, Nevada and Idaho in a rented monstrosity of an RV, in order to satisfy a Congressionally mandated Foreign Service “home leave” (between overseas tours), and in order to avoid camping with relatives for an…
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Exploring Madagascar’s Jungles at Night
If you ever find yourself in Andasibe-Mantadia National Park in Madagascar, be sure and check out the “night walk”. You can hire a tour guide who will walk you down a quiet, dark road flanked by thick jungle, and alert you to various types of lemurs, reptiles, amphibians, and other creatures you’ll never see by…
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Filming Bee-Eaters in my Yard
I remember one day walking into my back yard at dusk and seeing an odd flash of blue in a tree – out of the corner of my eye. Imagine my surprise when I realized it was a group of 6 swallow-tailed bee-eaters huddled together for the night. I had seen photos of them and…
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Scenes from the Caprivi: Nkasa Lupala Tented Lodge
There’s this cool new tent lodge “in the middle of nowhere” up in the Caprivi. So named because it sits just along the edge of the national park of the same name (formerly known as Mamili), this cluster of luxury raised tents sits in the middle of the Kwando-Linyanti river system, a labyrinth of narrow…
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Caprivi is for the Birds
Caprivi is that northeasternmost region in Namibia that looks so odd on a map. I’m sure there is a really interesting historical reason dating from the colonial days for Caprivi being part of Namibia. But for now it just sticks out there, too thin to really even qualify as a panhandle. It borders Angola, Zambia,…
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Best music for hanging out with giraffes
When you’re editing vacation videos, it’s always fun to come up with the best music – ideally one that conveys the right mood, maybe something that relates to the place you’re visiting. But sometimes the best music to convey the mood is no music at all. In this video, we managed to get awfully close…
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Life and Death at Avis
We have this pretty amazing reservoir just outside Windhoek created by Avis dam – it’s a wildlife protected area / bird sanctuary / dog walking area / jogging area. And fishing/boating pond. And you can get some awesome pictures out there if you pay attention. Examples: An egret takes flight Pretty good fishing at…
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Video: 24 Hours at Etosha
Along the southern fringes of Etosha National Park, Namibia’s flagship park, are scattered a handful of camps and watering holes. The oldest of these is Okaukuejo, 18 km from Anderson gate in the southwest corner of the park. At Okaukuejo, the “bush chalets” are oriented around the watering hole in a westward-facing orientation, which makes…
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Video – Elephants at Okaukuejo
We spotted the first elephant in the distance, and soon noticed he was followed by many more, all neatly in line, ears flapping and trunks swinging in that crazy, bouncy, elephant way. Eventually 32 of them arrived at the watering hole at Okaukuejo Camp,where they drank, bathed, played, and in some cases were a little peeved with…
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Supporting Africa’s Dwindling Wild Dog Population
Today I’ll be participating in N/a’ankuse Lodge and Wildlife Sanctuary’s “Corporate Eco-Challenge” to help raise money for their efforts to advocate on behalf of Africa’s dwindling wild dog population. African wild dogs, also known as “painted dogs“, are the second most endangered carnivore on the African continent, after the Ethiopian wolf. Estimates of the remaining…
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African Water Scorpion?
Today we came across the largest “digging scorpion” I’ve seen so far – about 3.5 inches or so from “nose” to tail. They burrow down in our garden, and this one apparently decided to burrow down into our pool. Apparently 1.5 meters of chlorinated water is no big deal for a scorpion, as he was…
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Wildlife through a Loupe – Micro goes Macro
For my latest video, I noticed I had gradually been collecting random footage of “micro-wildlife” I have come across while working in my new garden here in Windhoek. One of the creatures I had been continually running across is the millipede. These guys are everywhere, coiled up under the soil, perhaps waiting for cool weather…
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The Blackbirds Came Back – Wildlife Videography
I was pretty excited about the opportunity to do a little more “wildlife photography” in my back yard. The blackbird pair that I featured in the video “Learning to Fly” came back for another brood. I saw one of them fly into the ivy that climbs one side of our house and grabbed a closer…