While I love this blog, I now pretty much only write on my other two blogs: BirdingBlogs.com and 10,000 Birds - I would love to see you there!

Sunday 18 October 2009

Wildlife up close - wildlife fur/skin edition

So I really enjoyed the "Wildlife Up Close" digiscoping series - I loved taking the photos and I loved sharing the photos with my blog friends. So far I have posted six posts in the series, which pretty much gets me to the end of the decent super-up-close photos that I took while in southern Africa this last (austral) winter. I wish I had taken more, and although I had four great encounters with Leopard (and have leopard digiscoping photos here and a digiscoping/no digiscoping comparison of a leopard here), I never managed to get any really good close-ups of leopards (to complete my Big 5 close-up ambitions). But you will never catch me close to complaining about the spectacular experiences I have shared with the leopards of the bushveld...

this penultimate wildlife up close post is a little different: you need to guess what mammals you are looking at (you can identify the birds as well if you want, but they are not the focus) and then choose your favorite one.

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

If you have not seen any of the "Wildlife up close" digiscoping series, then here is a bit of an intro (from the first Cape Buffalo post):
So one of the great things about digiscoping is that one has a huge focal length to play with, so one can really get up close and personal with some pretty impressive creatures. In my time in Southern Africa, I was able to get a whole pile of close-up macro-style images of a variety of wildlife.
What I would like to do is to create a collection of the best "Wildlife up close" images but I would like you to help me out. Each post will feature a different species of African wildlife and I would like to vote for your favorite (or against your least favorite).

So far, we have had:
the final Wildlife Up Close post will be on Cheetahs - and I have some great shots of them!

Please vote for your favorite, and at the end of the series, I will randomly choose a winner from each post in the series and send them the original full-sized image they chose. In two weeks I will randomly choose a winner from all those that voted in a particular post!


Have a wonderful day!
Dale Forbes

11 comments:

SAPhotographs (Joan) said...

Great close-ups Dale.

#1 Impala
#2 Elephant with Fork-tailed Drongo
#3 Rhino
#4 Buffalo
#5 not sure - could be lion
#6 lion
#7 cheetah

A good quizz too Dale. Of course a chetah being my favorite I have to go for the last pic. :)

Gaelyn said...

I'm not even going to try and guess, but will agree with Joan instead. However, I like the last shot best and thought it was leopard. Very fun close ups, especially of the fur.

Dale Forbes said...

Joan, you got 5 out of 7 - I knew you'd be good at this one ;-)

Hi Gaelyn, the give-away with the cheetah is that it has black dots, not rosettes (black rings with brown centres) like the leopard and jaguar

SAPhotographs (Joan) said...

Okay I am going to change #5 to a cheetah too but 6 has got me puzzled? Maybe a caracul? :)

SAPhotographs (Joan) said...

So where are the answers? :)

Dale Forbes said...

number 1 is not an imapala
number 5 is not that hard ;-)
there are two mammals in number 6. neither of which is a caracal

SAPhotographs (Joan) said...

Not an Impala? Hmmm..... Is it a buck? Maybe a Steenbok?

#5 is definitely a cheetah.

#6 A cheetah paw on a warthog? I would say on a buffalo but they do not feed on them.

Dale Forbes said...

number 5 is not a cheetah - would any self-respecting cat let itself get that messy? about as tall as a cheetah but way more scruffy. and a much bigger head.

steenbok is a good guess, but the photo was taken in KwaZulu-Natal. look at the colour closely.

number 6 is too big for and square for a cheetah. buffalo is also close, but think a little smaller.

I am going away for the (long) weekend with Barbara, I'll post the answers when we get back.

dev wijewardane said...

love the photographs. specially the second one!

Dale Forbes said...

#1 Red Duiker
#2 Elephant with Fork-tailed Drongo
#3 White Rhino with Fork-tailed Drongo
#4 Buffalo with Redbilled Oxpecker
#5 Spotted Hyaena
#6 Lion with Wildebeest
#7 Cheetah

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