To start with, I am apologising for the lack of posts on this blog (to be precise, 0 posts in 8 months). This has been down to a number of reasons, those mainly being exams, trips and laziness. But hopefully I will redeem myself slightly with the post today.
At the beginning of July, I embarked on a school trip to Malawi as a volunteer for the charity, Ripple Africa. Before we did the volunteering work, we all went on safari in Zambia at South Luangwa national park for 2 days (originally meant to be 3 days). Unfortunately though, there were a few complications along the way. One being an over 12 hour delay for the flight to Kenya meaning we missed a day of safari. There was still lots to see nevertheless.
The first photos I took were actually in the campsite. This was down to the large numbers of vervet monkeys roaming around which actually proved to be quite fun subjects to photograph.
The first trip out of the camp was on the first evening. Upon starting the safari, we got news of a pride of lions somewhere in the park. This meant we headed straight to where the lions were, before it got dark.
We were also taken on a night watch once the sun went down. Although I wasn't really able to take photos, I still enjoyed myself. We managed to spot (by we, I mean the guides) a serval, mongoose, elephant shrews and a chameleon. Yes, one of the guides spotted a chameleon, 5 metres away in a bush, at night, with nothing but a torch.
Now for the photos I took the following morning and evening, I will just upload them without explaining each and every photo.
After the sun had gone down, we were taken on another night watch. There was a bit of a surprise waiting for us however. While driving along, we saw another jeep parked at the side of the road. The reason for this was a leopard hunting impala just 10m away from the road. We followed it for a bit, with me constantly cursing the night for being there when the leopard was (very slow shutter speeds and high ISOs). Here are a few pics anyway.
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| Seriously edited |
Other wildlife that I saw once at the camp in Malawi include a black mamba (no photo), african fish eagles, giant midge clouds, scorpions and an assortment of moths.
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| Found in someones shoe |
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| That's not a dust cloud, those are midges |
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| Snowing Midges |
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| The dark clouds just over the lake are midges |
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| Some sort of tiger moth |
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| Daphnis nerii |
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| Size comparison: My hand is 20cm long |
I hope you have enjoyed looking through the images taken on the trip. Hopefully I will upload more often although I can't make any promises with my A-level year approaching. Nevertheless, I will try to get out and take photos as well as posting them.
All images © Samuel Aron
