Photography by Vincent Mistretta

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December 2009

Mammals, Wildlife
Impala Antelope
12.17.09 | Permalink | Post a Comment

Its amazing how beautiful the Impala is. Botswana’s population seems to be thriving. When we were there, mothers had recently given birth to many calves.

Impala Calf Approaching Male Adult

Several things make identifying Impala’s easy. The most notable is the “M” shape marking on the hind end. Many people think it looks like a McDonalds sign. Many of my readers know I love movies. To me it looks more like the McDowells sign in “Coming to America”!

Unfortunately, one of the real purposes the Impala serves in the circle of life is food for many of the predators. We witnessed many kills where the Impala was on the menu as the daily special. The most notable of these kills were the dog kill featured in one of my previous blogs and a leopard kill from my last day at Chitabe.

Leopard Kill of Impala in Tree, Chitabe, Botswana, Africa

Its hard to imagine that a creature so beautiful as the Impala serves mostly as food for Africa’s wild predator population.

Impala Calf, Chitabe Camp, Botswana, Africa
Travel, Wildlife
Africa Day 3, Wild Dogs
12.07.09 | Permalink | 2 Comments

We were very fortunate to witness a pack of 22 wild dogs on 2 of our game drives. This was one of the most exciting parts of the trip for me. I will keep the pictures here to just pack behavior as I know many children read this blog. I will have some scenes of the kill in the website gallery shortly.

African Wild Dog Pups at play, Chitabe, Botswana

You can tell by the image below that these hunts take their toll on the animals. Look at the right front leg on the dog to the left.

African Wild Dog with Injured Leg, Chitabe, Botswana

This pack had 14 new pups in the 22, 2 of the pups had already not survived the last few months. That said, our guide told us that this was one of the largest African Wild Dog packs in Africa.

African Wild Dog pups at play, Chitabe, Botswana

Flying around the dog kill was this beautiful Yellow Billed Kite. When the dogs were not looking he swooped down and grabbed a piece of their kill which is actually still in his talons in this picture.

Yellow Billed Kite in Flight, Chitabe, Botswana
Landscapes, Travel, Wildlife
Africa Day 2, Victoria Falls and Zambezi River
12.04.09 | Permalink | Post a Comment

Sunday was an intense day, not only was it our first full day in Africa (after roughly 30 hours of flying) but it was a day with 3 scheduled location shoots, 1 more than we would have on any other day. After we photographed in Mosi-Oa-Tunya National Park we were off to Victoria Falls. As many of you know, Victoria Falls is one of the seven natural wonders of the world.

Victoria Falls from the Zambia entrance

Above is a picture looking at the falls from the Zambian entrance. You can visit the falls from either Zambia or Zimbabwe. Given that this was the beginning of the wet season, the falls were almost dry. In another 2 months the falls would cover the full length of the photo along the right wall. We were told that when the falls were in full force, we could not stand where we were taking pictures because the mist and force of the water would overwhelm us.

Man sitting on dry Victoria Falls

If you look closely at the above photo, you can see a man sitting on a dry section of the falls, this will give you a perspective of just how massive an area the falls cover. I would estimate that the section in this photo was approximately 1/8 of the full width of the falls.

Victoria Falls across the foot bridge

Many of you have heard about people bungee jumping from Victoria Bridge. Here is the bridge. If you look closely at the photo below, you can see the building on the bridge people jump from and the bungee as it hangs down from the bridge.

Victoria Falls Bridge

Later in the evening we took another sunset cruise down the Zambezi River. In the photo below, we were looking down one of the rivers tributaries that led to the falls. You can see in the photo the mist from the falls.

Victoria Falls Mist from Zambezi River

African Crocodile along the Zambezi River, Zambia

All in all, our trip to Zambia was very memorable albeit short.