Article by Denni Raubenheimer
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| White rhino mother and calf by Karina White. |
I was slightly nervous about what Dinokeng’s
bushveld would provide with us before our first Dinokeng wildlife photography
workshop on 8-10 November 2013. Even in our top game reserves one is never
guaranteed photo-ops with sought-after wild photo-subjects. However, in retrospect, and after two
workshops in Dinokeng from Tamboti Game Lodge, I cannot complain for a lack of
great photo-ops in the time we have spent in the reserve during workshops.
Before getting into my account of our November
workshop, let me give some basic information on the recently established
Dinokeng Game Reserve. The Dinokeng Game Reserve is a large residential game
reserve with free roaming Big 5 located roughly 30 minutes north of Pretoria.
It was officially opened on 22 September 2011 and boosts the first free-roaming
lion and elephant in the Tshwane Metro for more than 100 years. There are
roughly 30 lodges within the reserve that offer a variety of accommodation and
activities. Typical habitat found in the reserve is Acacia bushveld and mixed
bushveld, that both vary from densely bushed to open tree-savanna. Although no
self-drive routes yet exist in Dinokeng, game-drive providers have access to a
large network of roads for game viewing. Entrance fees are R25 per adult and
R15 for children between 2-12 with the first hour in the reserve being free.
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| Common Ostrich by Gretchen Pypers. |
Our rendezvous with our three workshop
attendees was at 16h00. Two of the participants had arrived much earlier and
seemed to have already started to unwind from work. After everyone formally
meeting each other the workshop’s structure was discussed and it’s main aims
given – improving the participants wildlife photography and facilitating a
memorable weekend.
Our first drive had nice and sunny late
afternoon light. There were some good opportunities with wildebeest and zebra
in typical acacia-rich Dinokeng bushveld. We played around with subject
isolation and took advantage of the animals’ habituation to game vehicles. Near the end of our drive Derrick
(Lodge owner and driver) got a tip-off of three White rhino next to a stream
close to the lodge. We headed in their direction with thumbs crossed and
luckily found them a stone’s throw away from our searching vehicle. By keeping
quite and giving them time to relax they slowly ambled nearer to our vehicle
and even though the light had become rather dim everyone had good opportunities
to photograph these gentle giants.
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| White rhino photographed next to small stream close to Tamboti Lodge. |
The next morning Yolande and our clients left on
their photo-drive shortly after sunrise.
The highlights of their drive was a small group of Giraffe in early back
lighting and two separate encounters with White rhino. The first was of a
single one only moderately close to the vehicle and the second of a group of
three which included the rhino-equivalent of a toddler.
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| Baby Giraffe in back lighting by Karina White. |
Two presentations were given during the course
of the day and some time was also spent on bird photography in Tamboti’s
bird-rich garden. The weekend would give both me and Yolande respective lifers
(something I had not expected since we have spent much time birding in the
region). For me it was a Great Spotted Cuckoo in the garden and for Yolande it
was to be an African Cuckoo-Hawk (which is not at all common close to
Pretoria).
On our second late-afternoon game drive we
planned to try and photograph rare leucistic (white) Black-backed jackal pups. For a
second year a female leucistic Black-backed jackal that roams a territory
overlapping with the lodge had had white pups in a den nearby Tamboti. The den
was about one kilometre from the lodge and Derrick had gauged the time the pups
typically surfaced before evening. This only happened nearer to dusk, so the
first part of the drive was not in their direction. For the first part we
encountered many antelope and we photographed some zebra close to the vehicle
in beautiful golden light as we started to head towards the den. Nearing the site we all quieted down and
then Derrick stopped. He gestured into a wooded patch some 40 metres in front
of the vehicle and one-by-one we all saw two small white jackals. I was elated
just to see them and we all tried to contain our excitement as we observed the
two interacting with their two regularly-coloured siblings and tried to
manoeuvre into favourable angles for the best photos. The light was already
very low, but all managed to capture the special memory of a very rare sighting
and here and there a good photo was captured.
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| Rare leucistic Black-backed Jackal pups. |
The final guided game drive once again left
just after sunrise. This drive had comparably little large game sightings, but
was an avian delight. More than one species of raptor was encountered, but the
most noteworthy was an adult African Cuckoo-Hawk. The vehicle followed it from
perch to perch for a while and the passengers were treated to witnessing the
tenacious belligerence with which Fork-tailed drongos evict raptors from their
territories. Some time was also spent trying to capture swallows in flight.
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| African Cuckoo-Hawk. |
After the last drive and some welcome breakfast
our clients had time to select some of their better photos from the workshop.
We helped them refine these selections and did some basic editing to the final
selections. The workshop was then ended with a show-and-tell and Yolande and I
were very impressed by our clients’ photos. Gretchen Pypers had to leave straight
after the show-and-tell and the rest of us had final farewell beers in the
bar-lounge. All-in-all a very memorable weekend.
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| Sunlight through clouds during game drive. |
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| Farewell beers. |
