It was he, Scarface the lion (Scar), curled up like a housecat in the grass, his thick dew-covered mane sparkling in the sun. His brothers Hunter, Sikio, and Morani were nearby; they also slept. The Four Musketeers, known for their prowess and savagery, instead looked precious where they lay. […]
“Aaaaaaaaaaaack!” Reflexively my jeep-mates lunged for their cameras. Panting from the adrenaline rush, they looked at me bewildered. “It was a mistake! It was a mistake! I didn’t mean to hit the shutter!” I yelped apologetically, feeling like a dope. For a second they stared at me and […]
It’s hot. Really hot. It feels as if we’ve been stuffed into a convection oven and I pray for a breeze. The temperature and immobility are making me sleepy but there’s no way we’re leaving. We’re on a safari in Kenya in the vast plains known as the Masai Mara making some […]
It began with the death of zebra. From miles away we heard its terrified, high-pitched bark echoing across the Mara. It took us five minutes driving like a bat out of hell to reach it but by the time we arrived, it was laying at the bottom of […]
Peeking from behind the grooved flesh of the tree, two tiny blue eyes caught the sun. A speckled paw the size of a half-dollar with needle-sharp claws, latched on to the bark as it leaned against the base of a large branch. I could see the gentle curve […]
If you haven’t seen a crossing during the great wildebeest Migration in person (trust me) no documentary will ever do it justice. It’s like trying to capture the enormity of the Himalayas in a photograph or the feeling of flight from a video. Crossings are unlike anything you’ve […]
He sat in the wheat-colored grass, the remnants of a fallen wildebeest hiding everything but his magnificently maned head and the blood stain goatee on his chin. Undeniably handsome, yet scarred from years of battle, he was Aslan in the flesh, as if plucked from The Chronicles of […]
Pangolin! It’s a pangolin! Oh my God, it’s a pangolin!!! I might as well have said “Pigs are flying! Pigs are flying!” Because until that moment, both were just as unlikely. Pangolins are one of Africa’s most elusive creatures and rarely seen. I’ve spoken to guides who’ve spent […]
I’ve never tried to drag half a dead wildebeest in my mouth but I’m thinking it can’t be easy. It’s not a task I often contemplate mind you, but it came to my attention last year when a determined female from a large pride was doing just that […]
Across the dimly lit tent stood Dr. Philip “Flip” Stander, the world’s foremost expert on Namibia’s famed desert-adapted lions, looking every bit the grizzled, stereotypical researcher who’d spent most of his life alone in the field. His hair askew—as if he’d just run his hand through it—sported the […]