wide angle lens for wildlife photography

My favorite lens for wildlife is the 500 f/4 L IS, but sometimes you
need something a little bit wider ... like when the cheetah jumps on
the roof and looks thru your viewfinder

http://members.aol.com/bhilton665/ta...06/cheetah.htm ...

Also some pics of lions behaving badly on the same trip if you follow
the links and some good bird pics, though the light was difficult
during much of the trip.

Bill

In article .com, Bill
Hilton wrote:
like when the cheetah jumps on
the roof and looks thru your viewfinder

"Driver, can you put me nearer that herd of humans over there?"

Roger

Bill,

Those lion shots are compelling, as is the story and background. What a
scene/experience that must have been.

A few years ago I was watching a grizzly bear hunting elk calves in a
rainstrom (so no photos). He was bird-dogging back and forth in the
sagebrush when he jumped a calf that had been hidden beneath a bush.
Despite the youngster's age he was fast and the chase continued for over a
hundred yards. The bear was losing ground, but then the calf turned at
right angles to its former path and the bear cut the corner catching up to
it and smashing to the ground.

I'll never forget the strange rush of emotions, first rooting for the bear
and then the calf. Strange, confused emotions when it was all over. Am
wondering how you felt after watching this violent affair.

Again, great photos...

Gordon Dietzman



"Bill Hilton" wrote in message
oups.com...
My favorite lens for wildlife is the 500 f/4 L IS, but sometimes you
need something a little bit wider ... like when the cheetah jumps on
the roof and looks thru your viewfinder

http://members.aol.com/bhilton665/ta...06/cheetah.htm ...

Also some pics of lions behaving badly on the same trip if you follow
the links and some good bird pics, though the light was difficult
during much of the trip.

Bill

Wow.



Good or bad, nature is infinitely interesting. And, yes, we are part of
nature.

- Alan Justice

"Bill Hilton" wrote in message
oups.com...
Gordon Dietzman writes ...

Those lion shots are compelling, as is the story and background.
What a scene/experience that must have been.

Thanks Gordon, glad you liked them.

I'll never forget the strange rush of emotions, first rooting for the
bear
and then the calf. Strange, confused emotions when it was all over.
Am wondering how you felt after watching this violent affair

Interesting question ... I'm reminded of a "Seinfeld" show where Jerry
remarks how one week on the Nature channel the story is about antelopes
trying to escape from vicious predators and you're pulling for the
antelope, and next week the story is about how the mama
cheetah/lion/leopard needs to catch an antelope to feed her hungry
cubs/kittens and you are pulling for the cheetah

So I wasn't really emotionally involved in this lion squabble ... in
another photo you can clearly see the ribs and backbone jutting out
from the Mohawk male even though his belly is full so he was in pretty
bad shape. So even though he was acting badly (in human terms) by not
sharing the buffalo it's clear that the males felt they needed that
meat to live. Lions live short, brutish violent lives and this is the
kind of thing you'd expect when food is scarce. Half the lion cub
deaths (per Schaller's research) were due to starvation, when larger
lions wouldn't let them feed on a carcass Had the female been crippled
and then swarmed by hyenas (their usual fate) I would have felt badly
for her but she walked off and can hunt much better than the males so
likely caught something fresh later on anyway.

I would feel really bad if I somehow did something to cause a death ...
for example the cheetah mom with the two small cubs shown on a
different page may have been hiding the cubs so she could hunt later
... we didn't see the cubs at first so approached closer than we should
have and she brought them into the open and was moving them when we
left ... had a lion or hyena seen this they would have tried to catch
and kill the cubs and to some extent that would have been partially due
to us, and I would have felt really bad. From now on when we see
cheetahs near grass patches like this I'll ask the driver to stay back
a bit until we're sure there aren't small cubs in hiding.

The one time I did feel bad was in January ... a wildebeest calf maybe
3-5 days old was separated from its mother and the entire herd and
since only the mother will feed it this one was sure to either starve
or be killed by predators, especially since their herding instinct is
so strong they will approach any moving shape in hopes it's their
mother, so they will walk right up to a lion or hyena. So we see this
little guy alone maybe 50 yards out in the woodlands, lost and
confused, and the driver makes a sound like 'waaauuugh', somewhat like
a wildebeest ... and the little calf jumps up and runs right to the
jeep and imprints on us as his fellow herd member ... so he's running
around us all happy and excited, probably looking for an exhaust pipe
so he can try to nurse ... so then we see another vehicle coming behind
us and decide to move on (it's very early and we are looking for lions)
and as we start to drive off the calf runs after us ... the driver goes
faster and the calf is running flat out, bawling all the way ... we
finally have to hit over 35 mph to leave the little guy behind and you
can imagine he's crying in wildebeest-speak "mom, mom, don't leave me
again! mom, mom ..." So I felt guilty about getting the little guy's
hopes up and asked the driver not to call in any more wilde calves if
we saw them ...

Bill