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| [Note Guidelines] Photographer's Note |
I got the picture of this male kalahari lion while travelling in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park.
The Kalahari lions are not a subspecies of their own, but just particularly well adapted to the desert ecosystem. For example, their fur is lighter than that of lions elsewhere and is an excellent camouflage.
Kalahari lions can go for weeks without drinking water and survive on very few prey. In the vast desert they must fight harder for their food than in other regions, because stalking is made more difficult by the open territory.
Lions reproduce from the age of three years on. They don't have a seasonally determined breeding time, but mate as soon as the female is sexually mature. Gestation takes 105 days. Usually two or three cubs are born. Under the hard living conditions of the Kalahari, mortality amongst the cubs is very high.
The Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park is known to be the best game reserve in South Africa for lion watching. |
anel, Nikon has marked this note useful
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- Nikon (12)
- [2008-04-20 6:40]
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Fantastic Shot!!!
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- loot
![Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 5633 W: 594 N: 3201]](http://i1.treknature.com/misc/g-g-g.gif)
(8695) - [2008-04-23 6:48]
- [3]
Hi Peter
Ou vuilbaard op sy beste.
Looks like this was more than just eye contact. This guy was eyeing which bite he was going to take first, if you ask my opinion. It appears to be a gigantic male and even when one is sitting in a vehicle I find there are very few other things that are as intimidating as a lion at close range focusing in and getting that expression of "Hey, I've seen food" and going down in a stalking mode and demeanour. I sort of get the impression that this ones body language is telling that story.
At the bottom one can see a little bit of the beautiful darker mane that is so typical of the Kalahari lions. I quite fancy the lighting of this shot, sort of from behind and from the (right) side. Yet, it seems that with all the glare of the desert you actually had sufficient light on the (left) side to gain some natural fill-in light on the shady side of the animal and thus capturing lovely detail all around. Unless of course you instructed your wife to stand next to the lion with a reflector to direct some light on to the subject (chuckle).
Well done and TFS.
Regards
Loot
![Silver Star Critiquer/Silver Note Writer [C: 23 W: 0 N: 22]](http://i1.treknature.com/misc/s-n-s.gif){kind=small}