In late September, we went to Southern Africa for a trip first organised before COVID and repeatedly rearranged and cancelled!

It was great to get there eventually. Our first destination was the lovely little reserve of Zimanga in South Africa. I initially went there in 2015 quite soon after it opened and loved it then. More hides have been built so I was excited to go back. In fact many of the best sightings were not from the hides, but out on game drives. The big cats were active and visible.

Early on morning just after leaving camp before sunrise we came upon these lions, looking quite eager to get some food!

The spotted cats were very good as well. Last time we went to Zimanga, there was a very chilled male cheetah, but now there were a number of younger animals some of which were right outside the lodge one lunchtime!

My favourite is always the leopards. They can be very tricky to find but again, our luck was in. This young female was gorgeous!

The hides produced many great views from close up and at eye level.

This is a crested guinea fowl, doing an Elvis impersonation!

Perhaps the most touching site was a family of giraffe filing past the body of an old giraffe who appeared to have died of natural causes. They passed individually,stopping and possibly paying their respects to a family member.

The best hide was the overnight one. Although no cats appeared, it was amazing having huge buffalo coming to drink just a few feet from me in the night.

From South Africa, we moved north to Botswana. We travelled to the Chobe river for 6 days where we were largely boat based enjoying the different perspective out photographing from the water level. There were masses of amazing elephants which we had spectacular views of.

They are fascinating and so photogenic.

The river is very well stocked with some very substantial crocodiles like this large male displaying.

There was also some great lion action with a large pride by the river. Early one morning, we watched as they tried to take down a buffalo. They failed.

They got the buffalo that night though!

There some fantastic birds as well. African fish eagles are amazing, and have a wonderful haunting call. This one grabbed a huge fish and couldn’t take off to teat safely away from the waters edge.

I love kingfishers and there were plenty around. Pied, malachite, giant and striated but my favourite was the small and secretive half collared kingfisher that proved quite a challenging subject.

Perhaps the best of all were the African skimmers. Watching and photographing these spectacular birds was so much fun as they whizz along the surface dipping their lower mandible in the water.

The birds nest on small sandy islands and seeing the chicks was also lovely.

There was an almost endless supply of wonderful scenes to photograph, but we then moved on to the amazing Okavango Delta

Here we saw more extraordinary big cat activity, including three resident pride males having a roaring contest with two new males in the area. Bit different to the usual lion action of watching them sleep!

There was also more leopard sightings such as this lovely one

Another exciting sight was my first roan antelope. I have never seen one before so getting a lovely view in great light was very special.

It was the lions that were the best , from a one day old cub to the big boys in charge!

We finally, very sadly had to leave this paradise, and ended our trip with a few days in Cape Town and Franchoek. Even here I managed to get some interesting shots , including an albino squirrel in a CT park!

The botanical gardens at Kirstenbosch revealed a superb Cape eagle owl with chicks.

The final subject which I found in the hotel grounds was the beautiful malachite sunbird.

It was a truly spectacular trip. I took over 40000 images, so what you see here is a tiny proportion. I would repeat this trip in a flash, it was tremendous!