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Have been absent from this forum for the past 2 months as I have recently returned from an amazing 24 nights in Botswana, and the rest of the time processing 110GIG of images!
Here are a few to start off:

Malachite Kingfisher
Chobe River- Botswana Sept 09. Monopod from small boat.
This is the closest I've ever been able to get to these skittish birds, if your reasonably quiet, I found that we
could approach within a few metres
D3 500VR 1/2000s ISO3200@f/5.6 (in the hope he would take off)




Sunset walk to water.
Moremi GR- Botswana
D300 70-200VR 1/250s f/4.8 ISO200@70mm.




Adult male Sable hurdling a creek with fleeing Red-billed Oxpeckers.
Moremi GR- Botswana.

D3 500VR 1/750s ISO200 f/4



It was an amazing experience to be lucky enough to witness
this Zebra mum give birth to this foal.
A first for me, and our guide of 13 years had never witnessed such an event!
The first of a few to post plus a bit of a story involving Wild Dogs and this newborn.(all good)
Moremi GR, Okavango Delta- Botswana.

D3 500VR+1.4tc f/5.6 ISO200 1/1000s




C & C most welcome

Cheers
Marc

stunning as usual Marc.... the first pix is fantastic, and from a boat

Great Pics

Utterly amazing. Beautiful composition and tack sharp. You're on vacation so I don't 'spose you had the odd grad filter with you (I'm thinking of the elephants). The first is stunning, beautiful bokeh, but the rest are just as good!
Great job- love to see some more.

Appreciate the comments guys.

ian.bertram wrote:Utterly amazing. Beautiful composition and tack sharp. You're on vacation so I don't 'spose you had the odd grad filter with you (I'm thinking of the elephants). The first is stunning, beautiful bokeh, but the rest are just as good!
Great job- love to see some more.

Ian
re. Ele sunset, yes I did take some ND grad filters, but in this case I wanted the Ele's silhouetted.

Cheers
Marc

Marc,

great to see some of your Botswana photos. The Malachite kingfisher is awesome, sharp, nice tilt of the head, catchlight, all works for me.

To get to witness the zebra giving birth would have be very special, well caught too, had a peak at your site

I only got a brief glimpse of this type of kingfisher when in Namibia and I can tell the others, it is very small so well done to have such a great photo.

The elephant shot is also very nice. For me, I would crop some off the top and a bit off the bottom to have more of a pano size.

Looks like the new 500mm lens served you well.

Cheers,

André

Amazing photos. I have to say that the sunset elephants are just simply stunning and are my favourite, but a crop to pano would be very nice.

aim54x wrote:the sunset elephants are just simply stunning and are my favourite

Same here! what a stunning series.

absolutely amazing experience and photos
please tell us more about your trip and experiences

Whilst all the photos are good the last is special as you have captured something which is rarely seen and for this reason it is the stand out.

stunning & the zebra shot is so special
DebT

Marc - for me all these shots have the 'WOW' factor.

Especially like the adult male Sable jumping the creek with the birds flying off in the opposite direction.

noice! love the first two

All the above comments and speechless... to boot!
Excellent colours, sharpness and composition in each one.

Marc, very impressive!

Thanks to everyone for the kind comments.

Big V wrote:Whilst all the photos are good the last is special as you have captured something which is rarely seen and for this reason it is the stand out.

Have to agree BigV, whilst nothing technically special about the Zebra birth image it's one that stands out most in my mind with this trip to Botswana.
When I first saw it lying down, it was positioned with all 4 legs out parallel to the ground, I said to our guide that I thought she may be in labour, his reply was no, she's just lying down. That theory soon went out the window after she had got up with half a foal hanging out the back!
Then after giving birth and within about 5 mins the foal was up and heading (unfortunately) towards a pack of Wild Dogs that were lying down in the morning sun. I'll post some of what eventuated later.
Just another day unfolding in Africa, which is why I keep going back.

Cheers
Marc

Absolutely bloody stunning images.

The kingfisher is brilliant. Such detail and colour, and from a boat, too.

The second image is not displaying for me.

The timing of the zebra shot is spot on.

Again some cracker shots and looks like some very special memories. Im not usually drawn to pics of birds, (the winged variety) but the colours and sharpness of pic 1 in this series is very eye-catching. Looks like it was an amazing trip.

Jase

wow, very nice pictures, i love all pictures in this post, very nice indeed. (very nice is an under statement but i don't know any other appropriate word, fully sick maybe? )