Zimbabwe - Kaleel Zibe

WILDLIFE BABIES

Kaleel — Wed, 15 May 2019 09:32:00 +0000

I’ve been a professional wildlife photographer since 2008 and for all of that time I’ve been trying to take pictures that will invoke an emotional response with people. In my experience, there is nothing that does that quite as well as baby animals. It’s probably got a lot to do with the cute factor.

I’ve collected here some of the baby animals and young wildlife photos that I’ve taken over the years. Each one of them triggers a fond memory and takes me back to where and when I took that photo. Whilst I’ve described a little about how to approach taking these shots below, this is perhaps less of a Tips blog post than a celebration of young wildlife. Having said that, there are one are two things that are worth noting about taking photographs of juveniles and baby animals and birds and it would be broadly covered under the heading of creating a disturbance to the animal at its most vulnerable. More of that in a minute.

What’s not to love about lion and leopard cubs?

It’s so rewarding to photograph and film young animals: they tend to be more playful and more cute than their parents. It’s often just a case of pointing your camera and waiting for them to do something funny or cute. All the usual rules of wildlife photography composition and camera settings apply just in the way that they would for adults, but one thing that I think often sets young animals apart from adults is that they are often really good for interactive shots because of that playfulness. Watching lion cubs or young elephants play-fighting is an absolute joy. And to photograph them doing that: even better.

Baby elephants play-fighting, young grey seals, an Arctic tern chick and a baby rabbit

One useful thing to note is that because young animals are usually much smaller than their parents, it’s worth making that connection in the photograph. So for example you might want to put a cute baby with its parent to show the different sizes and parental love and protection, rather than only taking photographs of the young animal by itself. Putting a parent in the frame also underlines how small the babies can be.

Some examples of young animals and birds with their parents: elephants, humpback whales, giraffes, zebras, grey seals, shags (the brown one is the baby), guillemots, Arctic terns and ostriches

Lastly, the prickly business of whether you should be taking the photo in the first place. This is particularly important to consider where the species is threatened or endangered. For these animals and birds, they need the utmost protection when at their most vulnerable, which is usually when they are very young and still at the nest / den etc. As such, they are often protected by laws and rules that stipulate when they can and can’t be approached – including to be photographed.

An example of this would be birds in the UK covered under Schedule 1 licenses: you would need one of these licenses to get anywhere near these creatures at their nest. The BTO issues licenses on behalf of Natural England. They also have a list that tells you which birds are protected and in which territories. These licenses are often called disturbance licenses because you are intentionally creating a disturbance at this species’ most vulnerable point by approaching them. Obviously, photographing the animals at this sensitive time is a disturbance too, particularly if you get close, as we often want to in photography for that special shot.

With endangered species, this is not only a risk for their survival (nest abandonment, behavioural change, increased risk of predation, etc.), but it is illegal and you could be prosecuted. So, the long and the short of it is that you need to know which species are vulnerable and protected before you even attempt to go and photograph them. Occasionally you may be allowed to photograph a sensitive species for a specific purpose if in the long run it does the conservation of that species some good.

For example, several years ago I did a project on red kites, which are protected birds. I was attached to the RSPB who were doing a project in our local area and was asked to take photographs at and near the nest sites of some of the kites. This could only be done under the supervision of the local RSPB team who had a Schedule 1 disturbance license. I was then allowed to photograph the nest site and young birds as long as I made myself scarce if anybody walked nearby and never disclosed to anybody where the nest was. I also ended up taking a photograph of a young kite that had fallen out of its nest and was being kept in an undisclosed location before being later released.

Red kite on a nest, photographed with a Schedule 1 license. The second photograph is the young kite that hatched from the egg you can just see in the first photo. It actually fell out of the nest and was rescued. After recuperation, I was allowed to photograph it before it was re-released into the wild

Similarly when photographing lion cubs or any other mammals in Africa, as I often do when taking people on photography safaris, I and all of the clients I take under my wing must always pay attention to what our guides tell us is possible. Sometimes they will say we must move away from an animal to avoid distress. This must be the baseline for all wildlife viewing, never mind photography. And it is particularly important where young animals are concerned.

All this being said, if you’ve done your research and you either know the species is not threatened, or you have the permission of a body who can grant you access, then carry on.

You may at this point be thinking, well there are plenty of garden birds or woodland animals that are not threatened that would be fair game to photograph when young. Just bear in mind that all animals when very young are vulnerable, even if the species itself is not protected. Always exercise caution and don’t get too close. Use your common sense: you can usually tell when wildlife feels under threat.

An olive baboon baby on the back of its mother

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Giraffes: The Precipitous Fall of the Tallest Animal on Earth

Kaleel — Fri, 09 Dec 2016 17:19:59 +0000

They may be high up, but numbers are crashing to Earth. A family of giraffes stares down at the strange human lying in front of them

Serene silhouette

How d’you know you’re looking at a male giraffe? He’s got a big knob on his head. Yup.

Frivolity aside (although the knob thing is actually true), these creatures are awe-inspiring when studied at close quarters. If you’ve only ever seen giraffes in a zoo, nothing will prepare you for how other they are in the wild. That ridiculously tall neck. The legs. The knees! And also how you really can lose a six metre tall, one ton beast even though it’s right in front of you. I’ve had several encounters with giraffes, but let me tell you about three that I’ll remember for ever.

First off, on our 2015 safari, I had an unusual opportunity to get out of the vehicle to photograph a family of giraffes from ground level. Our group had spent a long while photographing the animals from the vehicle and had mostly exhausted the available shots when our Maasai guide, Moses suggested it would be ok for me to get out of the Land Cruiser and creep under the front wheel for a unique angle. Most animals more or less ignore you when you’re in a vehicle. They either assume you’re part of the vehicle, or just don’t see you as a threat / lunch. However, as soon as you exit, they see you differently and react. In this instance, I thought I’d done a stealthy slink out on the giraffes’ blind side and snuck under the wheel slowly and quietly, unnoticed. But the game was up immediately. Wild animals aren’t stupid and a whole forest of necks turned and levelled an imperious stare at the idiot photographer prostrate on the ground in front of them. Happily, they weren’t spooked and stood like blotchy statues while I got some photographs with a nice low perspective. Meanwhile Moses and my other companions in the vehicle scanned for bitey cats and hyenas. I don’t think anyone else fancied running the gauntlet!

The invisible giraffe

The second encounter was several years ago in Zimbabwe when driving through a highly unpromising piece of scrubby woodland. It was one of those occasions where you assume nothing interesting will happen because of the terrain and set about cleaning the dust off your lens or (finally) remembering to apply some sun cream to gently sizzling bits of forehead. A few minutes into the scrub, we stopped. I looked around: nothing but dry trees. Why would we stop here? “Giraffes” came the answer. Where? Oh…

This is why you need safari guides who can spot a lion killing a warthog 2 miles away, or a secretary bird stalking on the far side of a plain. Otherwise you’d be blissfully ignorant of some of the best opportunities. Following my guide’s finger, my gaze alighted abruptly on a giraffe. A giraffe that definitely hadn’t been there a second before. But how could such a large animal hide in plain sight? The camouflage was uncanny. Not only that, but once I got my eye in, I discovered there was a whole herd right under our noses: a family of at least eight surrounding us, quietly browsing leaves and gently gliding through the bush without a sound. What a moment. What majesty and elegance these animals have. They may seem ungainly in captivity, but in the wild, they are graceful. I don’t remember breathing out, but I must have, eventually.

A baby giraffe greets its mother

The last special giraffe memory I’d like to tell you about happened near the end of last year’s trip to Kenya. We’d seen plenty of giraffes, but on the way home to the camp, anticipating a glass of red wine with friends round the camp fire, we came across a baby giraffe with its mother. At first sight, it didn’t look like a baby: it was taller than I am and was running significantly faster than I can (ok, giraffes can run very fast, and I’m rubbish at running). The give-away was the still visible dried umbilical cord. This unexpectedly cute giant, gleefully sprinting around after its mother for the sheer fun of it, was only a few days old and had actually been born during our stay in the Masai Mara. It hadn’t been there when we arrived at House in the Wild eight days earlier. What a privilege to witness.

A privilege that my children’s children might not get to see.

Along with a number of high profile, iconic species around the world, giraffes are declining at an alarming rate: there are now only 97,000 giraffes in the wild. That’s 55,000 fewer than 30 years ago. To put it bluntly, they’re in short supply and at that rate, they might become extinct in the near future. The IUCN Red List has reclassified giraffes as ‘vulnerable’ after a nearly 40% reduction in numbers. The causes are the usual toxic mixture of poaching and habitat loss / degradation due to human encroachment, agriculture and industry, as well as war to mention just some of the factors. Giraffes and their close relatives, the endangered okapis are relatively poorly studied and receive limited conservation efforts and funding, but the IUCN World Conservation Congress drew up plans in September to attempt to reverse the decline.

I have a theory about the decline of such iconic animals as giraffes and lions and tigers and cheetahs et al. It goes something along the lines that we don’t actually believe an animal like the giraffe could possibly go extinct because photographs of these animals are so plentiful and ubiquitous and the creatures are so embedded in our consciousness that it’s impossible to connect with the notion that they might disappear entirely. That’s a dangerous assumption.

During my time in Kenya this year I made a short film about our wildlife experiences in the Masai Mara, which includes footage of giraffes. It’s unthinkable that in a few decades, there might be no more giraffes to film.

8-day old baby giraffe born during our time in Kenya

This is why acacia trees are shaped like this.

Knobbly knees contest winners

Giraffe family sunset

A sturdy, foot-long tongue enables these leviathans to pluck desert dates from between the acacia tree spines

Giraffes in their landscape

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Rhinos: here today, gone tomorrow?

Kaleel — Fri, 21 Nov 2014 14:09:44 +0000

Peek-a-boo, rhino style. I see you now, but will I see you in a decade?

Rhinos are back in the news, for the usual bad reasons. Poaching has gone crazy again and the worry is that at the current rate, in a few years’ time, more animals will be killed than are born. And there can be only one outcome if that continues. It’s a desperate situation.

The horns are highly prized for ornamental status symbols or are powdered for oriental medicines. Bizarre, seeing as horn is made of keratin, which is essentially toenails. I wonder what the herbalists would think if I offered them my clippings.

The black rhinoceros is critically endangered and white rhinos are near threatened.

In the field, rhinos have crap eyesight, so it’s possible to get quite close to them on foot, which is what we did on this trip to Matopos National Park in Zimbabwe. This white rhino was aware of our presence, but didn’t get spooked. I was slightly concerned about my guide’s insistence that I should climb a tree if the animal got agitated and charged. There weren’t any trees! I needn’t have worried though, and the colossal animal continued placidly munching and lumbered on with its business without any fuss.

Seeing a rhino in the wild is an increasingly rare experience. On my last trip to the Masai Mara, I didn’t see a single wild rhino. I’ve compensated for this somewhat in my 2015 Mara safari by adding in a visit to the rhino sanctuary, just in case. It seems incredible that even with armed guards watching over them, these iconic animals are still being slaughtered for their horns. The scale of the problem is frightening and those that watch over rhinos simply can’t keep up with the poachers.

I have my fingers crossed for the survival of these magnificent creatures, which are reminiscent more of dinosaurs than modern day animals. But I suspect crossing everything I have won’t be enough. All I can do is hope that my small contribution in getting the conservation message out there with my images and writing will help.

Here’s a video that’s targeted at China and Vietnam about not buying rhino horn. You may be ambivalent about the celebrity nature of the video, but it’s this sort of thing that raises awareness:

White rhino – Matopos, Zimbabwe. ‘White’ is actually a corruption of ‘wijd’, meaning ‘wide’ in Dutch (of which Afrikaans is a major influence). It doesn’t refer to the colour (black rhinos are much the same) but to the width of the mouth. Black rhinos have a more pointed mouth, which they use for browsing twigs and leaves, whereas the wide mouth of a white rhino mows the grass. Probably overkill for the lawn though

If you can, please share this on social media so that global awareness can eventually drive enough action to save threatened species. Thanks.

These rhino shots were taken in Matopos National Park, Zimbabwe

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