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Thanks guys ,Matt you can swear at me over a beer some time .

I forgot to add , I cheated with the cheetah shot , I have cloned out a rather unsightly radar collar and "mast" that he was wearing .
I will be sure to send the originals to the research project though .

Great stuff Bucky!!

You seem to do very well with the 40D. How did you find working with the 500?

the 500 is a bit awkward , and mine seemed to have a back focus issue , resulting in lost pics .
Luckily with a 1.4 converter on it focused ok .

That said , I wouldn't mind having one in my kit lol , but have decided to save for the 300 F2.8 first .

On a side note , these pics are a spread taken with my 350d ,30d and the 40d .

Cheers !

First of all , thanks for all the replys .

Now , where was I , sorry to take so long , but I was trying to get pics processed and onto odp so I could add them here , I don't trust flickr to much .

Jackal on dead Eland near TR -


13th borehole attracted lots and lots of game when the lions where not hogging it , I wonder if the water is sweeter here than elsewhere (or less salty) .


The ground squirrels seem pretty abundant , unlike the meerkats which I never found .
I love the way they form an "umbrella" with there tails to protect them from the sun .
This one was eating on some sort of succulent bush .


On my last mornings drive out from Matta Matta , I eventually hit the jackpot with the 13th borehole crowd , and the cubs where in photographic range , although the sun was in a bit of an awkward spot .
Here one of the older cubs walks with mom .


I was only able to get a few pics of the other male in this prides coalition one morning at 14th borehole .
He seemed to be very camera shy , and preferred to hang about on the highest dune tops surveying his territory !


The giraffe up there are really confused , It must be the heat


And then to finish up my Matta Matta set , another 13th borehole visitor -


All in all , I found the Matta Matta area very charming , I must book for there next September for the kids holidays .
I bet the boys will love the hide , and the waterhole to go look about at with there torches at night .

I will try construct the last part of my report from TR a little more lucidly , sorry if the above seems like the ultra condensed forum digest version

Just trying to test the thumbnail system ,I will carry on with my report when I get this working lol .

Ah great it works , tomorrow I shall continue - promise !

If I do not finish this quick , I will be away on another trip and back with another load of pics to handle

My last section of the holiday was spent at TR , and I decided to head back there a little sooner as I felt I had not explored the area properly .
As it turns out this was a lucky decision, and this luck came in the form of brilliant sightings every day, but there where four absolutely fantastic sightings that blew me away .

I had already decided that the nossob route was best for the morning , and the Auob route best for the afternoon in terms of the way the sun falls on the waterholes, and also the dunes when coming back from the auob side are beyond belief gorgeous in the afternoons .
This turned out very well , and the first of the three amazing sightings was the sighting with the pride of lions that I had seen on the first morning at Samevloing waterhole .
This groups seems to move up and down the nossob river as far as Kij Kij .
I headed out early as always , and was the second vehicle into the park , to my delight vehicle one turned onto the Auob road .
Close to Leudril I found the pair of young males playing on the road .
I followed them until they joined up with the rest of the group , and they moved slowly to the water hole where they had taken a young eland .
Here are just some of the close to 1000 photos I took that morning, and I reckon I got a good 50 unique stunner's .
Here are a few of them , and please click on the photo if you are interested in viewing a larger version .

Siblings at play -



Moms n kids at play -



Brothers and sisters -


And then just running for the sake of running , and clobbering whoever you can catch .


And my personal favorite photograph of the trip (And perhaps ever) .