A most picturesque sighting not easily forgotten

There are few places in the world where one can travel and stand a rather decent chance of viewing such a magnificent animal. Mysterious, elusive and always majestic... the leopard.

08:20 and as the day slowly started to heat up, it seemed like a good time to have a little morning coffee in the bush. We approached a river crossing and there on the Northern bank of the dry riverbed, about 50m down we noticed movement up in a tall, fantastically bright green Sycamore Fig tree. After slowly making our way through thick riverbed sand we peered up to find this large male leopard balancing overhead, feeding on a Bushbuck kill.

It was an incredible sighting, surrounded by thick riverine vegetation and a large bull elephant on the Southern bank. I managed to capture this image whilst leaving the sighting as we had encountered a roadblock in the way of the elephant who had decided to feed at our exit point. Whilst we were stopped by our excusable roadblock, more elephants approached the Sycamore Fig tree which held the leopard thus leaving him stranded too.

It is rather amazing that in my time spent at Sabi Sabi I have had many opportunities to sit and observe these special cats. Every sighting is always different and special in its own way, whether they’re feeding, hunting, mating, resting or patrolling. I have been asked many a time if finding a leopard is rare and although we are privileged with phenomenal sightings, seeing a leopard, no matter how many times... is never taken for granted.

Equipment used

• Camera – Nikon D7200
• Lens – Sigma 150-600 contemporary lens

Settings used to capture this image

• ISO – 800
• Aperture – f/6,3
• Shutter – 1/400

Editing used on this image

I didn’t do too much editing here, I increased the contrast and clarity a bit and also upped he saturation ever so slightly.