C4 Photo Vehicle Experience, Part 1 - By Kyle de Nobrega

Just a few days back Mashatu resident photographer Kyle de Nobrega hosted guests on the C4 photo vehicle for an awesome four day experience.

The four days where jam packed with world class sightings and photographic opportunity. Everything from mating lions, new born hyena relocation, multiple leopard sightings and two great mornings spent in the C4 hides including birds and elephants galore.

Here is part one of a two part series of images by Kyle taken over the four days spent on the C4 photo vehicle:

Mating lions

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First Day Of The Best Month!

August is by far our favourite month at the C4 Hides. Animal activity has really been picking up around the waterhole, with daily visits from the elephants and an array of bird species visiting for their daily drinks.

Yes, we are only one day into the month, but take a look at the awesome sightings the first day of August has already provided us with...

 

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An Underground Image Gallery - By Trevor Kleyn

Recently, photographic guide Trevor Kleyn spent some time at Mashatu Game Reserve manning C4’s Hides. With the reserve rapidly drying up, Trevor along with groups visiting the hides got to witness some great wild life action. Here are a couple of shots from Trevor’s time with us underground.

Impala trying to penetrate through the wall of banded mongoose for a drink of water

 

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Courageous Cub – By Loi Nguyen

 

A few days before my departure for a 4 night stay at Mashatu Game Reserve, I saw on a Facebook posting of this very special cheetah family with four sub adult cubs. The cubs where about 15 months old and looked healthy. I was so excited and hoped that they would stay around for my visit as part of a photography workshop led by Greg du Toit. As it turned out, we saw the family every single day, although they were mostly relaxing in the company of each other for the first two days. Not discouraged, we kept checking on them on the third day and witnessed a failed attempt of a hunt. Exhausted, Mama retreated to the shade of a bush and was comforted by her cubs.

We were about to leave them when a large troop of baboons began to come into view. The family hastily retreated and one of the cubs took off, but the remaining 3 cub’s buddle with their Mama at the base of the bush. We feared the worst.

 

Cheetah family surrounded by baboons.

 

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Intimate Namibia Landscapes 2016

Namibia is a massive, desolate landscape and boasts the title of the 4th least populated country in the world. With an average distance between towns of 200km, its endless vistas will be permanently etched into your soul. Namibia’s desert winds have sculpted the world’s highest dunes out of red sand and it is these dunes that make the Namibian landscape like no other on earth. In some places the dunes rise out of endless fields of grass and in others the dunes are as high as mountains. In a special place the sand cut off the water supply to a seasonal wetland and today the result is the petrified trees of Deadvlei. In the far South, fine silica sands are now reclaiming what was once the site of a great diamond rush - the ghost town of Kolmanskop. To the West, a special combination of rocky ground and hot, arid conditions have created one of the most alien plants on earth; the Quiver Tree. Where the Fish River flows over an ancient plateau, it has cut the 2nd largest canyon on earth into the rock. Join Namibia landscape specialists Hougaard Milan and award winning photographer Isak Pretorius for an opportunity to experience and photograph these one of a kind landscapes, from the ground, road and air.

For more info on this trips itinerary click on the link to our website below:

Intimate Namibia Landscapes 2016

A small photo gallery from our guides below, is just a glimpse to what photographs are possible to capture on this safari!

 

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A Productive Morning at the Hide

After a night of strong winds, we were unsure of what the morning would hold for our regular Matabole Hide session. We set off from the lodge before dawn into the crisp morning air, all wrapped up for our 30min drive towards the hide. As the sun slowly rose where excited to see the many puffs of scattered cloud cover slowly illuminate creating a fantastic backdrop to what we hoped would be a great hide session.

On arrival to the hide we set up our camera gear, we even experimented with a more artist approach to shooting with a Go Pro that we had lodged inside the waterhole. All set up and ready to go, and right on queue an elephant bull arrived. The bull gave us a good show before meandering off back into the Mopane. He most certainly set the tone for the morning with great birds following pursuit, as well as, herds of impala, a troop of baboons, a terrapin and a shy squirrel.

Feeling very content with our morning spent at the hide, we decided to head back to camp for brunch. Jokingly we mentioned between us that all we needed to top off an already top class morning in the bush would be a leopard ... and in true Mashatu style a leopard we did see!

 

Clouds making a perfect backdrop for the morning activity

 

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Mashatu Photo Workshop, April 2 - May 3 : By Isak Pretorius

Safari Diary - 29 April 2015

Photo Workshop, Mashatu Game Reserve in Botswana

We were so inspired by our photos and the potential at the bee-eater hide that we decided to give it another try this morning. The dark background, golden side-lighting and action created stunning photos. A coffee break under a big Mashatu tree concluded both the morning drive as well as the first photo workshop. We to...ok our guests back to the border and picked up the new guests for the second workshop. During the afternoon drive our original plan was to have a look at the lions feeding on the elephant carcass. Instead, we found a leopard and spent the whole drive with her as she climbed a few trees, walked around, drank water and finally disappeared into the thicket. This was a fantastic start to the second workshop and the bar had been raised very high.

 

 

Leopard | 1/50sec at f/4.5, ISO 2500 | Canon EOS-1D Mark IV + EF200-400mmf/4L IS USM | Shutter priority, -1 EV

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Guest Image Gallery, Serengeti and Mahale Mountains: By Randall Bacon

 

Recently returned from the Serengeti and the Mahale Mountains is guest traveller Randall Bacon. Randall along with fellow travellers and photographers, where guided and hosted by top wildlife photographer Greg du Toit. The group’s first stop on the trip was the Serengeti, in search of the large migrating herds of wildebeest who at this time of year have begun their calving process. Unfortunately, the group didn’t catch the migration but where still treated to fantastic predator sightings on a daily basis.  Thereafter, the group continued to a remote destination on the eastern banks of Lake Tanganyika, Mahale Mountain. The area offers a unique experience, of exploring the pristine indigenous forests in search of the shy Mahale chimps. The team where extremely successful in capture some incredible shots from both of these Tanzanian wilderness areas, thank you to Randall for sharing a few of your top shots from the trip.

 

 

 

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C4 Valley Hide

It’s been an impressive start to the establishment of our newest hide edition on Mashatu Game Reserve, The Valley Hide.  The hide has been created using the same design principles as the existing Matabole Hide, which has served many photographers in capturing the renowned low angle intimate shots the hide is known for.

The Valley Hide is no different, and in its first few weeks of operation has proved to be a very active little waterhole drawing a variety of species to the hide. The visitors include; multiple visits from the valley’s resident leopard, giraffe, zebra, jackal, hyena, steenbok, impala, eland, warthog and of course a variety of bird species.

We look forward to witnessing the Valley Hides first full year in the bush, and capturing and sharing the cycle of visitors the waterhole attracts to it.



Drinking giraffe close up

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August Winds

The August winds have once again brought change to underground hide.  New mammals, birds and herds have made regular visits to the hide this month making for an interesting viewing experience to all those who have visited the hide.

Kurrichane Thrush
 

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Iconic east Africa.

Amboseli, Masai Mara, Serengeti and Ngorongoro are all names that are at the heart of the safari industry in Africa, spread between Tanzania and Kenya. They stir up a romanticism that cannot be found in other locations. So when C4 Images and Safaris and Iconic Images International ran a safari to these wonderful locations we expected a good safari but nothing could prepare us for how wonderful the safari would actually be. We simply could not have asked for better sightings or photography

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Southern Serengeti Calving Season

Words and Images by C4 Guide Albie Venter

Contrary to what many believe, the great migration never really starts nor stops ever. It is a perpetual movement of the mega herd of herbivores comprising wildebeest, zebra, and some species of gazelle. One of the main events on our safari schedule is the annual calving season during the months of February and March in the southern Serengeti. Here we caught up with the herd in a beautiful location in the southern woodland. Africa’s quintessential plains meet with the woodland and create a feature-full landscape of flat topped Acacia woodland interspersed with scenic Granite outcrops. These Granite kopje’s adds additional flavor and on them we often encountered prides of Lions, scenes reminiscent of Disney’s the Lion King.

A Scene out of Disney's Lion King! A pride on a Granite Koppie!

Quintessential East African Sunrise.

A chorus of Cape Turtle dove calls welcomed the day each morning as we travelled through the woodlands and we were treated to some of Africas most quintessential sunsets.

Our first afternoon had us photographing a pride of lionesses with no fewer than eight cubs all playing in the last rays of the setting sun.

All the large predators were present in numbers and we even witnessed a pair of newly independent Cheetah siblings taking down a wildebeest calf. Lions with cubs playing in golden light, a large male leopard and animals beyond count all contributed to a very memorable trip.

One of the Serengeti Special endemics, a Grey Breasted Spurfowl greeting calling at the end of day.

A big highlight was upon our return to camp one evening our chats were interrupted by a lioness walking nonchalantly through camp. And being a group of photographer one would imagine at least one good image between the lot of us. But alas...nothing to prove the sighting.

A Tawny Eagle taking off in early morning light.

Something I personally take real pleasure from is the fact that birds of prey were present in both species diversity as well as numbers. And although it is difficult to do proper birding during a safari in one of the worlds predator hotspots I did manage to tick off more than 120 species.

The smaller predators such as this pair of Bat Eared Foxes also added to the remarkable diversity of wildlife.

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