Specializing in tailor made luxury and adventure travel throughout Eastern and Southern Africa, as well as parts of South America and Alaska
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World elephant day 2024. This was taken a month ago in Amboseli. Got to be one of the best places in Africa to get views of large breeding herds ( this was one of over 50 that we spent the whole morning with).
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Further to the previous videos of the pups wailing and some of the helpers failing, here’s a series of photos of some successful pup transports.. from one den to another…
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Two days ago in the garden of Eden that is the Ngorongoro crater….just stunningly beautiful. Beside all the amazing cat action we had at dawn, we had many beautiful scenes like this one!
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Kumba… a quite impressive Tiger!
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Last week we ended our wonderful safari in South Africa at Phinda. One of the focuses was to see Pangolin. For those of you who don’t know, not only is this adorable and endangered animal the most trafficked animal in the world, but probably one of the hardest animals to see in the wild. In fact, it’s a common joke for guides when guests are prompted to ask to see Pangolin.. most safari guides have never seen one! Although they look like Armadillos, they are not actually that closely related to them. At Phinda we went out with the dedicated research team to find one of these Temmincks pangolins, learnt ground breaking new information about them and wandered through thick thornveld watching it feeding. What a privilege. I guess the next stop will be to try and see the giant pangolin in the Congo….
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A few hundreds photos later and almost a bean bag down…haven’t had time to edit any shots yet…
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From the relative heat of the Timbavati to the cold of the free state, lions to tigers and lots in between. Having an amazing time …
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People always ask if one can outrun an elephant, never if you can outrow one. I guess after gym, in the bush, you have to have breakfast with the elies….in the Timbavati right now, at the wonderful Tanda Tula camp..
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It’s funny how things happen. After all the lion and cheetah action and even the amazing leopard we had had in the central Serengeti, we headed up to the north to look especially for leopard.
A lioness had killed a baby zebra about 20m from my guide tent. I tracked the spoor and that evening we found the culprit on a kopje behind /in camp. With CUBS. Even though we were on a leopard mission this was too good an opportunity to miss..cubs..4-6weeks old, in camp! That night a leopard and a hyena fought over the carcass outside my tent, keeping me up all night.. so exciting,AND the leopard was close by….
The next day- leopard tracks everywhere and headed north out of camp. So we headed to the lioness ‘den’.. wow, the cubs were out in the open playing! At dawn, so we spent a good section of the morning with them.. in view of camp and in sight of a rogue troop of baboons. That afternoon we decided to leave them be and not bring attention to their hiding spot..we continued tracking the leopard but the grass was too long and we were stumped. That night she called, that great sawing sound we all love to hear..OK.. tomorrow I would find her!
The next morning we found lioness tracks going back and forward from the hiding spot.. I figured the lionesses were moving the cubs..we tracked and tracked and even found the cub tracks where they must have been put down. Then the tracks headed into the long grasses and gullies and kopjes we couldnt access. That afternoon we spotted two lioness silhouettes on a kopje and now knew their new hiding spot. Tomorrows focus. As you can tell we had totally (nearly) been distracted from leopards! The next day. Wow! We found the cubs and also found where the lionesses had killed a Buffalo nearby. They had led the cubs to possibly their first meat meal! I said to the other guide this will surely give us a leopard. The final drive that afternoon we found a huge male lion on the carcass being mobbed by a herd of Buffalo and whilst we were making sure the cubs were ok, one of our eagle eyed guests exclaimed.. what’s that on the rock.. we turned to the other side and there was our beautiful leopardess bathed in the last sunlight of the day!
A couple of weeks ago. We descended into the world famous Ngorongoro crater before dawn. We had multiple lion viewings including a hunt and a stand off between cubs and a herd of Buffalo. we decided to head to a lookout hill to scan for black rhinos but it seemed we weren’t the only ones to be on lookout. We spotted a lioness lurking around sone work vehicles and when we got to the vehicles we were treated to a big yellow cat on a big yellow CAT.. weirdly enough this had been the butt of a joke the week before (!). This is obviously not the first time this lioness has done this.
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# lions # canon photography #
Due to a cancellation we have four spaces on this wonderful itinerary. A week at the end of September in the northern Pantanal. This is always one of my favorite destinations that I look forward to every year. Myself and my good friend and guide extraordinaire Ricardo Casarin will be leading you in this amazing ecosystem looking for iconic South American species, the highlight of which will be 4 nights with jaguars, giant river otter, hyacinth macaws and more. If anyone is interested please email us at [email protected] for prices and availability
Thx
Calling all safari guides and botanists.. anyone have any idea what this plant is? We spotted a few of them last week between barafu kopjes and soit le motonyi ..after a lot of heavy rain. Dino J. Martins
A grand finale of our glorious five days on the Kenyan coast ended with a dinner at the iconic Tamarind restaurant. Eating the iconic crab dishes of Ginger crab, Black pepper crab and roast garlic crab. Look at the size of the claws on this mangrove crab!
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Goodbye Mauritius. We had a blast. Next and final destination- the Kenyan coast for Christmas.
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More family time.. from the emakoko to Mauritius.. come rain or shine. We’ve had great adventures and always pool time with kuku..
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On Christmas safari with the family. In the foothills of Kilimanjaro. Love it.
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Happy world cheetah day! Let’s not only celebrate these endangered cats but focus on securing these beautiful wildernesses without which they won’t survive. This is part of a cheetah family I photographed in the northern Serengeti this year. A quite spectacular encounter with no other vehicles in sight.
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Throwback to the old days of Karanja. This was one of those special days when we found him standing, hidden in a stream, off of the ol keju rongai in the Maasai Mara. He really was a legend. Thankfully he didn’t die from poaching, one of the few. World rhino day 2023
And here’s some bear photos from our day visiting Chinitna and Silver Salmon
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Some Alaska scenery shots from last week…
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Amazing!
Game changer..again!
Big thanks to our amazing agents for their unwavering support with the launch of Safari Portal 2.0's Calendar Builder! 🌍📅 We're thrilled to see how this new feature has been a game changer in the itinerary building process. Here's to our agents, the real MVPs 🎉
Special thanks to Zafaris for their amazing review:
‘’Safari Portal was seriously amazing from the get-go, but their new calendar builder has taken it to a whole new level. I'm constantly blown away by how they're always thinking outside the box and actually listening to feedback to come up with brilliant solutions. Their platform saves us a ton of time, and our clients absolutely love the itineraries and detailed final docs they get. Safari Portal is a game-changer for us, no doubt about it!’’
- Cara Lloyd
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This is a game changer…
A few highlights of the many features of Safari Portal. Incredible stuff coming soon..get ready…
The aptly named ‘Christmas iguanas’ of Espanola, Galapagos!
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It’s time to fly! I’m on my way to Quito and then the Galapagos. It’s going to be another amazing trip. First wildlife spit will be the Andean cloud forests at Mindo before we leave to the enchanted isles. Looking for lots of species of fast moving hummingbirds. Quite different subjects and habitat to the listed shot- which is of some of the largest congregations of flamingos I have ever seen. Hundreds of thousands if not a million! Taken last month at lake Burunge in northern Tanzania.
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This was from a few weeks ago in the northern Serengeti. This iconic wilderness totals about 11,000 square kilometers of stunning ecosystems, not least the open savannas of the north. It’s World Wildlife Day today, and yes we should highlight the plight of every elephant, rhino, lion and other endangered animal. But, without protected areas like this there will be no space for those animals to roam in. The biggest problem for wildlife ..worldwide …is human encroachment and habitat loss…lets save those wild places!
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Sometimes it’s the simplest things. Yesterday we had a sundowner by ourselves by lake Manyara in the stunning Chem Chem concession, and after a short afternoon rain were treated to beautiful cloud formations- not least this griffin/peacock that was headed to the western escarpment. I often tell my kids, look for beauty in even the simplest things, even clouds.
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Use Safari Portal's iframe element to embed a Tripclip right into your itinerary to add another dynamic element to your proposals. (You can already very easily embed any Youtube, Vimeo, or Wistia videos as well.) 🥳
Go team !
Excited to share that we have been honored with a High Performer award from G2 for Fall 2022 (our fourth consecutive seasonal High Performer Award)! Thank you to all our amazing supporters for sharing your enthusiasm for Safari Portal! Read the reviews here: https://lnkd.in/eV6EEMyP
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One of the many amazing hyena and wild dog interactions we had a Mombo last week. ——————————— #wild dog # spottedhyena #africanhuntingdogs #paintedwolves #africa #safari #photosafari #wildlife #animals #philwestsafaris #privateguidedsafaris #experiences #adventure #travel #bucketlist #wow #safariportalapp #animalphotography #wildlifephotography #photography #natgeoyourshot #earthpix #hippo #okavangodelta @animalonplanet @animalelite @animals.agile @worldanimalnews_ @wildlife.hd @wildlife__perfection @wildlife @featured_wildlife @africanwildlife1 @bbcwildlifemagazine @wildlifephotographicmag @ig_africa @ig_shotz_animal @ig.photooftheday @natgeo_africa @canonusa @canon.photographers @make_the_moment @thephotosociety @earthpix @wonderful_earthpix @natureismetal @crushontravelling @nature #nature @safariportalapp @travel @nytimestravel #travelphotography #traveladdict @nybucketlist
Our first full day on Safari in Botswana and we are treated to the spectacular herds of elephants of Mashatu. The babies were so cute and playful and after the walk-by we watched them all drinking in the river below us. We also had great hyenas, sleeping lions, a lounging leopard, stinky baboons, dazzles of zebras and journeys of giraffes. Wow, wow, wow.. —————————————————- #mashatugamereserve #botswana #elephants #safaris #philwestsafaris #photosafaris #privateguidedsafaris #wildlife #animals#wildlifephotography #animalphotography #bucketlist #canonphotography #canon #travel @mashatu_game_reserve @wildlife.hd @luxurtraveller @featured_wildlife @animalplanet @animalsdoingthings @animals_captures @wildlife__perfection @canon_photos @canon.photographers @ig_shotz_animal @ig_africa @elephantsofworld @beautifulelephants @ig_travelmind @photomashatu @nature @yourdailynaturefix @reel_nature_film
Hanging with the chimps of Mahale ————— #tanzania #africa #chimps #adventure #travel #holiday #safari #bucketlist #greatapes #mahale #privateguidesafari #philwestsafari @videooftheday
People don’t often realize how good elephants are at swimming. We approached this lovely bull by boat, on the mighty Zambezi river and you can see the ‘high tide mark’ along his belly from where he waded through the water to get to this little island! ———————————————— #africa #zambia #zambezi #safari #elephant #animals #animalvideo #photosafari #philwestsafari #privateguidedsafari #experience #bucketlist #wildlife #adventure #travel #boatsafari #canon #canonphotography #travelwithkids #familytravel #holiday #videooftheday @elephantspage Animal Planet Animals Doing Things @animalzofig Animalsvideos African Animals @wildlife.hd
Not much can compare to being within six feet of a big mountain gorilla silverback. This was my 14th visit and every single one has been different and special. Wonderful gentle giants. ------------------- #gorillas #africa #Rwanda #bucketlist #adventure #travel #wildlife #wildlifephotography #privateguidedsafari #familysafari #travelwithkids #safari #philwestsafari #safaris #animals #nature #wow #silverback #virungas #volcanoes #experience #gentlegiants
Going to use this clip in our next video from safaris this year so far...
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