My final post from Chobe concentrates on terrestrial animals pictured from Pangolin photo boat outings.
The islands in the Chobe River are mostly only a metre or so above water level, and even the main banks have wide, low, sandy margins. From the photo boats the photographer is often well positioned at or below eye level of creatures on these dry places.
There’s little to beat drawing up in the shallows by a bank, and then keeping silent while huge tuskers amble slowly nearer to tower overhead and sniff the intruders.
Adult elephant have 4 sets of grinding teeth, which work their way progressively forwards in the jaw. They are ground down by masticating food, and once they have all worn away the elephant soon dies.
Elephant eating marsh vegetation, very common in Chobe, have learned to beat the plants to and fro after they have uprooted them, and this removes much of the grit and preserves their teeth.
I tried to illustrate this by using a slow shutter speed in drive mode - the next series were taken hand-held at 300mm equivalent focal length at 1/40s to keep the body acceptably sharp while showing motion in the trunk and greenery.
Elephant love a muddy wallow to keep cool.
Several times a day, family groups of elephant cross the Chobe river to reach grazing on the low islands in the stream.
Up periscope!
Early mornings were good times to catch squabbling groups of baboons on the river banks in pretty light.
An assortment of other terrestrial life from the boats…
Impala impression
Waterbuck
