On my first night ever on safari in Botswana, we went to search for big game night animals, and the jeep stopped under a tree. A guide with a searchlight slowly raised the light from the tree trunk up to the first crook in the tree and peering out a us was this sweet baby leopard. I shot like crazy.
He then raised the light beam to the branch ten feet directly above us. Sleeping there was the momma leopard. WOW! I shot again like a madman. The driver’s hushed voice said to me “You shoot, you shoot fast, boss!” I sure did and we slowly backed away from the tree.
The light then beamed some twenty feet away to a partially devoured impala. The driver then explained to me that momma and baby had just dined on the impala and momma was napping, with a full belly. Had she not just eaten we would have been in big trouble with momma, being so close to her baby! Not a bad adventure for the first time out ever, huh?
exotic travel photography by Jered Barclay 