Botswana 2019

Mambas, nile crocodiles, hippos and elephants!
Read More
The yawn of the infamous black mamba, showing the namesake black inside of the mouth. The fangs are also visible
1 / 51

The yawn of the infamous black mamba, showing the namesake black inside of the mouth. The fangs are also visible

Check out those fangs!!
The black mamba gets its name not from black skin but from the inside of the mouth being jet black. The body is typically varying gray/olive colors, but when they feel threatened they will raise the first third of their body up, spread a very narrow hood at the neck, and gape an inky black mouth at any would be foe. I’ll tell you from personal experience, it’s pretty darn intimidating! If the threat display doesn’t work, they will readily strike, and with their impressive size this can be at the chest/face height of a man. They often bite multiple times in quick succession as well, with a study claiming that just one bite has the possibility of injecting enough venom to kill 15 men.

All that being said, and the mamba’s infamous reputation as being highly aggressive, I actually sat in a tree over 20ft high with this one for about twenty minutes, snapping many photos like this one while I was perched less than 10ft away. As with all the mambas I encountered, it wasn’t aggressive at all and had no interest in me. Now if you corner one or try to handle it, WOW are they fast and strike with agility! But I went Africa hearing all these stories of mambas chasing people down and being hyper aggressive, meanwhile I hung out up a tree with three different individuals without any signs of aggression and only trying get away.
Photographed with a Sony A7riii with a Metabones mark V adapter and Canon 100-400 telephoto lens.

Dendroaspispolylepis

  • The yawn of the infamous black mamba, showing the namesake black inside of the mouth. The fangs are also visible
  • Female Nile crocodile
  • Untitled photo
  • The tail of a modern day dragon slipping into the murky coffee like water of the Okavango Delta in the late afternoon light.  The Nile crocodile, although very real, is a creature of legend in Africa and is respected by all and  feared by most. They grow to 20ft in length and can weigh over a thousand pounds, and will prey upon almost any animal that comes near the water’s edge. It always amazes me to watch how something so large and powerful disappears beneath the murky water with barely a ripple, and then it is as if it simply ceases to exist, as if it was never even there at all, with no sign or trace that a modern dinosaur is concealed in the swirling coffee next to you. These are the thoughts that this fleeting shot of a large crocodile’s tail leave me with. - -<br />
<br />
It was amazing to see nile crocs in their natural habitat. I actually caught a Nile crocodile in the Everglades a couple of years ago with some of my colleagues, it was one of three Nile crocodiles captured in the Everglades that escaped from a local facility. There is not a known population of breeding Nile crocodiles in the Everglades<br />
Photographed with a Sony A7riii with a Metabones mark V adapter and Canon 100-400 telephoto lens.
  • Nile monitor lizard
  • Baby nile croc
  • It was incredible seeing elephants in the wild for the first time on my recent trip to Botswana! What a way to celebrate world elephant day today with this shot of this adorable elephant. Being in the wild, on foot in the bush with them was so incredible, they’re so huge and amazing. It was just mind blowing to be near them in the wild, I was speechless. And hearing them! Wow that was special. We were lucky enough to encounter elephants almost every day of the trip, one day it was a group of 20! <br />
<br />
Photographed with a Sony A7riii with a Metabones mark V adapter and Canon 100-400 telephoto lens.
  • Up close with a lone hippo
  • Untitled photo
  • An elephant sniffing the passing breeze for potential predators in the wild Botswana, Africa. Having the trunk comes in handy to catch that breeze just above the tall reeds. <br />
<br />
Being in the wild, on foot in the bush with them was so incredible, they’re so huge and amazing. It was just mind blowing to be near them in the wild, I was speechless. And hearing them! Wow that was special. We were lucky enough to encounter elephants almost every day of the trip, one day it was a group of 20! <br />
Photographed with a Sony A7riii with a Metabones mark V adapter and Canon 100-400 telephoto lens.
  • Untitled photo
  • Untitled photo
  • Untitled photo
  • Untitled photo
  • Untitled photo
  • Untitled photo
  • Pel's fishing owl
  • Untitled photo
  • The adorably terrifying hippopotamus. Hippos are well known for unpredictable and aggressive behavior, and the locals we met were far more scared of the hippos than the crocs. Although they look big and slow, they’re surprisingly quick and incredibly powerful animals that are known to attack boats and easily capsize small vessels. During our travels in the Okavango delta we had a few close encounters coming around a blind corner to meet a hippo charging at the boat. They never got close enough to do any damage and the encounter happened too fast to get any photo or video, but they made our daily boating excursions exciting to say the least. <br />
<br />
Photographed with a Sony A7riii with a Metabones mark V adapter and Canon 100-400 telephoto lens.
  • Untitled photo
  • No Comments
  • Photo Sharing
  • About SmugMug
  • Browse Photos
  • Prints & Gifts
  • Terms
  • Privacy
  • Contact
  • Owner Log In
© 2023 SmugMug, Inc.