iPad post

well  my first iPad post was a complete and utter failure - obviously I still have a lot to learn.  we are at the IPNC -the International Pinot Noir Celebration in McMinnville, Oregon. The weather is perfect. The morning started out well when we found out we were at the new St Innocent winery in the Eola-Amity AVA.

the introductions and key note speaker spoke while we had breakfast:

then we went to buses to the vineyards:

baby grapes!!!!

the winning course was the pasta....superb!  lots of good wines.... have to run now- wasted too much time trying to get the photos off of iPad and into blogger.  meeting the others in a few.

more later and then we will return to Africa when I get back from Oregon....

wet/dry

so the thing with the Delta is that it is dry dry dry- Kalahari sand in some spots and wet wet wet swamp/river/streams in others-

examples to help - pictures worth lots of words if not a thousand-

 from the air

two on the ground (above) and two on the water (below)  

and here is a sequence of an elephant who made is way from one side of water to the other:

the sign says NO HUNTING! - smart elephant!!!!!

on the second day of Delta drives we saw the lions - lounging- which is what they do a lot of the time....

this guy was on his way to meet up with the "gang"

delta revisited

as I am going through my photos I get to relive the trip- and isn't that exactly what photos are for- to help you remember and to show friends what you saw- maybe get them to go along next time....

so I have been working on the Okavango Delta pictures from our first day there.  I think I mentioned last time that we had lunch near the airstrip and then went on a game drive where we saw lion cubs and their mom.  but I don't think I spent much time focused on how lovely the delta landscape was. 

so here are some photos from that first delta day:

lunch under a large shade tree 

of course we ford water- it IS the delta after all... 

more water 

 sometimes a bridge - a newer bridge in this case

and then more water 



and an older bridge

then we arrive at camp where we are greeted warmly by staff and then shown our accommodations:

our tent's porch is right on the marshy area where hippos graze at night - making loud pig-like noises- LOL

the sun sets over the road we took into camp.....

but we can't close the day without remembering our cubs and their mom:

a great day remembered!

lepard photos revisited

remember our "leopard anniversary"?  the night we saw the one and only leopard in the wild, we saw him by red light at night,  because this is low light and tinted red, taking photos was extremely difficult.  my camera exposure time was so long that not only was everything blurry - in some shots it even looked like more than one leopard.   but trust us- we were there - a foot away as he strolled by the land rover- there was only one.

now I am home and have been going through photos I have gotten a chance to at least take the red color from the searchlight out of the photos - and here are the leopard photos as good as they are going to get-
not great but you can sure see spots!

he was magnificent- wish these were better so you could really get the feel for how special an evening this was!

our Leopard Anniversary!  - it will be tough to top that one....



more about sunsets

remember I mentioned that I had a lot of sunset photos- well that is somewhat of an understatement and so I won't post every one I have but here are a sequence of the light show we had on the Kafue River one evening when we were at the Lufupa River Camp in Zambia-

truly stunning colors as the light changed:

hope you found this "illuminating"-  LOL

killer instinct

on the first two days we saw - what I would call - a lot of dead animals-

the lions had been killing and sometime there wasn't a whole lot left - especially if others got in on the action -

the remains of the zebra body from the first day when we spotted the female lions in the morning:

what was left of its head- which had been dragged away by the jackals

Matsui shows us the spine and jaw of a kill

 this lady was protecting the remians of her kill of a small giraffe until cubs could come and feed - the jackal was not happy and was waiting impatiently

and finally this male was doing the same thing - protecting his small elephant kill until others could eat.