Botswana – Roumazeilles.net

Goodbye Botswana!

Yves Roumazeilles — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:27:07 +0000

Impalas.
Botswana, octobre 2011.

Lilac-breasted Roller

Yves Roumazeilles — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 15:18:39 +0000

Lilac-breasted Roller (Coracias caudata, Rollier à longs brins).
Botswana, October 2011.

Black Crake

Yves Roumazeilles — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 14:13:53 +0000

Very timid, this little bird decided to let us shoot pictures after several unsuccessful attempts.

Black Crake (Amaurornis flavirostra, Râle à bec jaune).
Botswana, October 2011.

Lions of Botswana

Yves Roumazeilles — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 14:17:46 +0000

Botswana, October 2011.

Jacana, ducks and water lily

Yves Roumazeilles — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 13:56:34 +0000

African Jacana (Actophilornis africanus, Jacana à poitrine dorée).
White-faced Whistling Duck (Dendrocygna viduata, Dendrocygne veuf).
Water lily (Nymphaeaceae).
Botswana, ocotobre 2011.

Zebra

Yves Roumazeilles — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 13:54:28 +0000

Botswana, October 2011.

Three elephants

Yves Roumazeilles — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 13:35:57 +0000

Vultures in the sunset

Yves Roumazeilles — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 13:27:42 +0000

Botswana, October 2011.

Green hippopotamus

Yves Roumazeilles — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 13:18:22 +0000

The bird is a Yellow-billed Oxpecker which had to fly off any time the hippopotamus submerged itself in the dark green waters. It came back as soon as the big perch re-appeared.

Botswana, October 2011.

African Jacana

Yves Roumazeilles — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 15:14:26 +0000

African Jacana (Actophilornis africanus, Jacana à poitrine dorée).
Botswana, October 2011.

Elephants, sunset

Yves Roumazeilles — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 12:56:28 +0000

A panorama test I did, investigating the issue of assembling panorama pictures with mobile subjects (an elephant moves, much more than you would believe, I assure you), made out of several pictures shot with a 400mm tele-lens to catch the sunset on the Chobe River, North of Botswana. The merging operation was done (back to Paris) using Photoshop CS5.

Botswana, October 2011.

Red Lechwe

Yves Roumazeilles — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 13:11:17 +0000

Red Lechwe (Kobus leche, Cobe de Lechwe)
Botswana, October 2011.

Southern Yellow-billed Hornbill

Yves Roumazeilles — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 12:52:44 +0000

Southern Yellow-billed Hornbill (Tockus leucomelas, Calao leucomèle)
Botswana, October 2011.

An elephant in white flowers

Yves Roumazeilles — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 15:16:23 +0000

Botswana, October 2011.

Klipspringer

Yves Roumazeilles — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 15:12:55 +0000

An astonishing little African antelope living in the rocks. Nearly impossible to see, we only found it thanks to the bright eyes of Frédérique Massenet who was the only one able to recognize the animal even perched on top of its rock right in the sunset light.

For the photographers really willing to know, the conditions for this shot were a bit out of the ordinary:

400mm f/4.5 Minolta telel-lens screwed onto a 2x multiplier of the same brand and attached to a Sony Alpha 700 (equivalent to a 1200mm lens on a 35mm film),
The lack of light forced me to work at ISO 800,
As I was not really sure of my focus, I preferred to close the diaphragm a little with an f/9 aperture,
So, I had to use a slow exposure speed: 1/60s (!)
To keep one good image, I chose to shoot a continuous sequence of many pictures while stopping myself against a bean bag and there was only one usable picture.
Back on the computer, I drastically cropped the original photograph…

At the end, the Klipspringer is a rather cute antelope, isn’t it?

Heron and storks

Yves Roumazeilles — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 13:40:45 +0000

At the end of the day, most birds try to perch (they are thus better protected against predators). In an area with a high animal density like Botswana, it allows some interesting encounters like this juvenile grey heron and these three openbill storks.

As can be well seen in this picture, the name of the storks comes directly from their bill which cannot close hermetically and which allows them to break shells where they find most of their food intake (a bit like a nut cracker).

Grey Heron (juvenile) (Ardea cinerea, Héron cendré (juvénile))
African Openbill (Anastomus lamelligerus, Bec-ouvert africain)

Botswana, October 2011.

Water panorama

Yves Roumazeilles — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 15:09:44 +0000

Baby cheetah

Yves Roumazeilles — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 15:08:06 +0000

Botswana, October 2011.

Nota bene: If you want to see (and hear) a babay cheetah mewing, I suggest that you go and visit YLoveBigCats.

In flight

Yves Roumazeilles — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 15:07:44 +0000

Click on the thumbnails to enlarge them.

Botswana landscapes

Yves Roumazeilles — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 15:01:43 +0000

You’ll notice that this is from the Northern part of Botswana (the Okavango delta and the Chobe river are biotopes much more humid than the Kalahari desert, of course).

Botswana, October 2011.