Aerial images
March 11, 2010
Despite the bad weather John and I had a wonderful week getting up into the air in his microlight whenever we could. A few shots..
Elephant family
Buffalo mud bath
Flying with Bateleur eagles is always exhilarating – they are extremely fast and almost impossible to photograph so I’m quite pleased with the image below.
Bateleur eagle
Apart from the photography we have been tracking lions using the radio collars fitted by the Luangwa Valley Carnivore Monitoring Program. We found a group of four males and a female feeding on a buffalo in the Nsefu sector. It seems the collared lions in the Lion Camp area have moved inland away from the river to avoid the flooding as there was no sign of them. We have also done a few flights further north looking for poachers – John quite often finds poacher’s camps and meat-drying racks in the rains but thankfully there is no sign of them this year.
Male Lion following a game trail
Content Copyright Patrick Bentley Photography
Exhibition closes
December 20, 2009
It has been a very busy month for me but my exhibition has now come to an end and things are quietening down just in time for Christmas. The exhibition was a great success – it was titled ‘Living Luangwa’ and featured 50 of my favourite images from my last 4 years work in the Luangwa valley. Here are a few of the most popular photographs although seeing them at web size doesn’t do them justice – printed large, framed and lit well makes all the difference..
Hollywood
Clash of the Titans
Kaingo
Broken Mopane
Kakuli
Milky way
Making waves
Geronimo!
Wet feet
Lashes
Skimming
Content Copyright Patrick Bentley Photography
Carmine bee-eater in flight
November 25, 2009
I managed to get a few hours of editing in today. I took this photo a couple days before I left the valley from one of my good friend Derek Shenton’s fabulous photographic hides. This one is built specifically for photographing carmine bee-eaters and is in a boat tied up to a tree in the river. Check it out here.
Content Copyright Patrick Bentley Photography
Carmine bee-eaters
November 8, 2009
The last couple months have been very busy and I haven’t had a chance to edit many images – which unfortunately means that the blog has been a little quiet recently. Things are starting to calm down a little now as the safari season comes to an end and so I will be posting more often in the coming weeks.
The Carmine bee-eaters have been active as usual this year, frantically digging their nests in the banks of the Luangwa river so that they can nest, raise their chicks and be gone again before the river fills with the coming rains. A couple shots..
Content Copyright Patrick Bentley Photography
Lilac breasted roller
October 11, 2009
otherwise known as ‘another bloody roller’ – a very common bird here in the valley but also very beautiful.
Content Copyright Patrick Bentley Photography
New bird for the Luangwa valley
August 28, 2009
Not a terribly exciting photo but it is quite an exciting find. This bird is a Spur-winged Lapwing (Plover) and it hasn’t been recorded here in the Luangwa Valley before. When I first saw it I thought it was the common Blacksmith Lapwing but on closer inspection it was quite obviously different. It has been added to the official list of National Park birds bringing the total number of species that occur here to 460.
Content Copyright Patrick Bentley Photography
White-headed lapwing
August 14, 2009
Content Copyright Patrick Bentley Photography
