So, yeah... The Serengeti pics might go on for a while. The start of this pages is only about 400 photos into a day of over 1200 pictures. (Holy buh-jayzus!) The thing is, it really IS everything it's cracked up to be! The wildlife is THICK! Vast herds -- VAST! The circle of life and all that Lion King stuff. For real! And it's just so amazing and beautiful there aren't enough words to describe it. (Well, I guess that's why I'm posting pics, no? :)
Not long after the vultures, we came across a mini migration. By miniature, I mean there were mere thousands of animals involved, instead of millions. It wasn't really part of the seasonal migrations, as far as we could tell, just a bunch of gnu who decided they needed to be
over there... RIGHT NOW! I think the zebra went along for the ride. They weren't quite as worked up about it as the wildebeesties.
Later we came across the most beautiful herd of elephants. The weather had turned cloudy and there were occasional patches of rain. The color of the grass, the trees, the sky, and the elephants themselves... Wow. Pure magic. Almost too beautiful to be real. Looking at the pictures I can't believe I really witnessed it all in person. So, so beautiful.
Not far from the elephants, we finally caught sight of the elusive leopard. This one was far off in a tree, trying to get some shuteye. The lighting and the distance made accurate photos difficult. My lens, however, was able to pick up a lot more than my naked eye. I didn't even realized we'd gotten to see the leopard's face until just now as I was editing the photos. (Thank you, as always, to Irfanview, for some quick crop and tweaking tools.) Some of the exposure adjustments came from the camera, others came in post.
Ah, and then there are the storks! As I was quickly sifting through the pictures before fine tuning them for posting, I saw the storks and just had to stop and admire them. I took a quick break and once again reviewed the Lion King trailer on Youtube. There were storks! Woohoo! And they really look like the real ones we saw! So neat. Actually, every time I've watched that trailer since we've come back, I start to cry. Africa is soooo beautiful. I must go back. There is something of my heart there now.
