Beautiful Darkness
Rarity is richness…
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
In Laikipia, black leopards matter. That’s why I spent a week at Laikipia Wilderness. I wanted to see Giza, a female with a melanistic variant in her genes that means her coat is almost pure black, with only slight traces of the rosettes that would usually be visible on her flanks. Her name means ‘Beautiful Darkness’, but she only comes out at night, and there was no guarantee of being able to see her, let alone photograph her. Was I going to get lucky? Let’s find out…
Getting There
Laikipia Wilderness is in Laikipia North, which is a region close to Mount Kenya. I had to fly from London Heathrow to Nairobi and then get a road transfer.
It took over five hours, but booking the Kenya Airways overnight flight meant I didn’t have to spend the night in a hotel, and going by road meant I didn’t have to wait around for a connecting flight.
The whole point was to save as much time as possible, and the journey door-to-door from Putney to Laikipia Wilderness only took me 17 hours—rather than the usual 24!
It wasn’t even that expensive. The car was about the same price as the connecting flight, and the premium for booking outward and return flights with Kenya Airways and BA (rather than booking both with BA and having to fly out during the day) was only a couple of hundred pounds.
This is all part of my new travel strategy. Africa is a long-haul destination, and I’m sick and tired of all the travelling I have to do when I go on safari. That’s why I’m trying to fly overnight as often as I can and replace connecting flights with road transfers.
It started when I went to Ol Jogi, near Nanyuki in Kenya. The limited schedule meant flying back to Nairobi Wilson Airport would’ve meant missing an entire game drive, so I asked the manager of the camp to book me a car direct to JKIA. He told me it would probably take six hours, but I ended up with the Kenyan version of Lewis Hamilton in the driving seat, so I got there in four!
This trip to Laikipia Wilderness is the first leg of a three-week trip to Kenya. After I leave tomorrow, I’ll be driving to Kicheche Laikipia for a week, then driving to Finch Hattons for a week and finally flying back to JKIA and on to London. The first road trip is two-and-a-half hours and the second nine hours.
I’d originally planned to drive back from Finch Hattons to JKIA, which would’ve taken four hours, but a couple of late bookings meant that I wouldn’t have to pay the single person supplement for a flight, and Finch Hattons agreed to offer me the flight and road transfers at both ends for the original price of the road transfer, so I agreed.
I should also say that Finch Hattons offered me a great rate for all the transfers to and from their camp, so I ended up saving around $800 on what I would’ve had to pay via Chameleon, the agents that booked the Laikipia Wilderness and Kicheche Laikipia stays for me.
The Camp
Laikipia Wilderness is similar to most African camps and lodges in that it has a main area with a lounge, bar and restaurant surrounded by individual tents for the guests.
When I was finalising my booking in advance, my email contact freely admitted that Laikipia Wilderness wasn’t a ‘luxury resort’ offering fine dining and high-thread-count cotton sheets, but that didn’t bother me. I was there for the black leopard!
When I eventually arrived, I was met by ‘Livy’ (short for Olivia), who showed me around.
Main Area
The main area was perfectly functional, with comfy chairs and a deck looking out on to the tree-covered hills. There was a Wi-Fi hut and a bathroom nearby, and my tent was only a few yards away. That made a nice change as I’m usually put in the room that’s furthest away—which is not great when I have to carry my cameras, my laptop, my card reader and all my cables to and fro!
My Tent
It may have been ‘just’ a tent, but, as is usual at most safari camps, my room had a proper bed and an outdoor bathroom with a shower and hot and cold running water—although I had to fix the cold tap and the toilet seat myself!
There were also a couple of bedside tables with lamps and a few shelves to store my clothes. I couldn’t connect to the Wi-Fi from my tent, but there were UK-type power outlets on either side of the bed, so I didn’t even need an adapter.
Wi-Fi Hut and Swing Bed
Given that the Wi-Fi hut had the best signal (when the power wasn’t out!), I based myself there during the day. I always take my laptop with me on photographic trips so that I can transfer my pictures and rate them while I’m away. With that in mind, I put it on the desk—with USB-C cables sprouting from every port! Whenever I came back from a game drive, I downloaded all my images using my card reader and recharged my cameras, iPhone and AirPods using my USB-C cables. It was all very easy.
Another great feature of the camp was the swing bed, which was built on a platform at the top of the hill. It was actually a swing seat rather than a swing bed, and I don’t know if anyone ever sleeps up there, but it had a great view of the bush—and it was a great place to try and spot Giza.
Lookouts
As well as the facilities in camp, there were also a few wooden lookouts in the surrounding area. We stopped there a few times to have brunch or try and spot Giza. The Laikipia landscape is one of the prettiest in sub-Saharan Africa, coming a close second to Tarangire in my personal experience, so it was always nice to have a drink and admire the surroundings. It was the perfect mixture of hills, rocks, rivers and trees.
Daily Routine
Mark (left) and Simon on a game drive
The routine was fairly standard for any African safari lodge. The only difference was that I only ate one meal a day, which meant I ate a normal lunch but no breakfast or dinner.
0530 Wake up
0600-1130 Game drive with Simon and Mark (often with a bush brunch)
1200 Lunch in the main area
1600-1930 Game drive with Simon and Mark
2000 Dinner
2200 Bed
I should say that these timings are only indicative. Sometimes, we’d go out 15 minutes early for the morning game drive and stay out until the early afternoon, and sometimes we’d have a ‘bush brunch’ instead of eating back at camp.
Food and Drink
If you go on safari anywhere in Africa, you certainly won’t starve! The standard routine involves one or even two breakfasts, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner. If you combine that with a lot of alcohol and zero exercise, you can imagine it’s very easy to pile on the pounds!
I went on a couple of two-week safaris last year. On the first, I ate and drank ‘normally’ and put on seven pounds! On the second, I decided to limit myself to one meal a day and adopt a ‘no snacks, no seconds’ rule—and lost seven pounds!
And that’s why I now stick to this regime when I’m away. It’s pure vanity, of course, and I’ve long since passed the age when I had to worry about my attractiveness to the opposite sex (!), but it’s better than coming home looking like the Michelin man!
In general, almost all the food you eat on safari will be from a buffet. It’s convenient for the kitchen staff, and it conveniently cuts down on food waste! It doesn’t make you feel quite as special as sitting down to a plated meal and being waited on hand and foot, but, as I say, I come to Africa for the wildlife, not the creature comforts.
Wherever you go, the individual meals follow a similar pattern:
Breakfast
Pastries, fruit, yoghurt, muesli and/or porridge before the morning game drive, plus toast, eggs, sausages, bacon and so on if you have another breakfast afterwards!
Tea, filter coffee, various cartons of juice. (A few places will even make you a smoothie or a mango lassi!)
Lunch
A buffet (surprise, surprise!) usually consisting of western-style main courses with chicken, beef, lamb or pork and a variety of mixed salads.
Fruit salad or, if you’re lucky, something creamy or chocolatey for dessert.
Afternoon Tea
Cake, tea and coffee
Dinner
Usually plated starters, a buffet (again!) and plated desserts.
The food at Laikipia Wilderness broadly fit the pattern. I particularly liked the meatloaf they provided for one of the bush brunches, and they made a couple of nice breads with nuts and cheese inside. However, when it comes to fruit salads, I think I just about reached my lifetime limit…!
Staff
I met so many staff that it was hard to keep track of them all (!), but here were the main players. (Apologies if I’ve missed out anyone…)
Steve: Owner
Dan: Head Guide
Livy: stand-in manager and expecting a baby with Dan!
Simon: my guide and driver
Mark: Simon’s spotter
Joshua: spotter
Santeria: waiter
Joseph: waiter
etc, etc…
Simon was my driver and Mark his spotter/tracker/assistant, so I spent all my game drives with them. On our first drive, I laid out my usual arrangement with Simon. He did the driving while I did the photography. In exchange for Simon’s services, I promised to show him all my favourite wildlife photos. As I told him, wildlife photography is a team effort, so I always like to give something back—however poor my pictures turn out to be!
I introduced myself by telling Simon my approach to photography, which is to capture the power, beauty, humour and cuteness of wildlife. I also told him what I wanted to see (apart from Giza), ie predators and birds, especially birds of prey, rollers, kingfishers and bee-eaters. I keep a list of all the species I see on all my photographic trips, so I asked him to tell me the names of any bird species we saw, and he was pretty good at doing that—although we both had a few problems with pronunciation!
Simon’s main job was to help me get shots of Giza, and he did it very well. We saw Giza every night, and he managed to get me in some great positions to photograph her walking straight towards us—which is a type of shot I really like.
He was also very chatty and forgave my occasional effing and blinding when I missed a shot or used the wrong settings!
Mark was the complete opposite and hardly said a word to me all week…!
The rest of the staff were perfectly friendly and helpful, which is par for the course in Africa, and Laikipia Wilderness is one of only three places in the world where I can get a bottle of Coke without even having to ask! However, I didn’t really end up talking to them much. I was either on a game drive, in my tent or hibernating in the Wi-Fi hut…!
Guests
Bear Gills
My first experience with one of the other guests was a complete fiasco. I was introduced to a couple called Tom and Tiffany, and I showed Tom a few of my photos (as I often do!). When I reached Bear Gills (above), I explained that it was an hommage to Thomas D Mangelsen, who had taken a very famous shot of a bear catching salmon at exactly the same place back in the Eighties called Catch of the Day.
When we parted ways, I had to confess that I’d forgotten his name. Was it Tom or Bob? “I’ll tell you later,” he said—which I thought at the time was a bit odd. Anyway, when I saw him later in the lounge, he told me his name was Tom—as in Thomas D Mangelsen!
Whoops! Talk about embarrassing moments! I apologised, of course, for not recognising him, but he was very gracious about the whole thing, telling me that it was a good photo and that I’d paid him a pretty compliment by giving him the credit for inspiring me.
Having said that, I still felt like a bit of an idiot. Do you remember the scene in Notting Hill when the guest at the dinner party asks what Julia Roberts does for a living? When she tells him she’s an actress, he sympathises as he thinks most of them are only scraping by…
Bernie: What's the pay like in movies? I mean. Last movie. How much did you get paid?
Anna Scott: 15 million dollars.
Yep, there are really bumbling fools like that—and I’m one of them!
Anyway, I got on pretty well with Tom and Tiffany and with the next guests to arrive, a German couple called Florian and Katerina. After that, I met Juliet and Suzanne with a young boy called James.
In general, I enjoy talking to the other guests on safari. It’s obviously a pretty expensive holiday, so you have to be fairly successful in life to be able to afford it—which means you’ve probably got at least a couple of brain cells to rub together. If you add in a love of wildlife and perhaps photography, it’s often the basis for a great conversation.
Wildlife
Beautiful Darkness
Africa is my favourite place for a photographic trip as it has such a range of fantastic wildlife and offers the chance to witness and capture tremendously exciting moments, such as a cheetah chasing its prey at 70 mph. I’ve been to all the other continents, but that’s why I keep coming back to Africa, and especially to Kenya.
So this trip could be seen as ‘more of the same’, but it was actually slightly different because I was there to see just one specific animal: Giza, the black leopard. Paul Goldstein once told me it was ‘ridiculous’ to make such a fuss about it, but I was still very keen to see her—as well as all the other animals you usually find on safari.
Giza
So this is it. This is where the rubber hits the road. Was I going to see Giza or not? And more to the point, was I going to be able to take any photos I’d be happy with? The answer, fortunately, was yes to both—as you can see from the pictures!
The first time I saw Giza, I was actually too busy thinking about my settings to get very excited. I was obviously pleased she turned up, but at the time, I was having real problems focusing and setting auto ISO when taking video clips on my Sony ⍺1, so I couldn’t really enjoy the moment. I have to confess that this is a problem I often have. My photos are so important to me that I only really enjoy a trip if I’m happy with them—and that generally means taking a few five-star shots.
Some people might say I should simply try to ‘enjoy the moment’, but I find it very hard to understand that kind of mindset. Every ‘problem’ is a fact plus a judgment. I’m a wildlife photographer, so it’s perfectly natural for me to want to do my job properly. The real problem, of course, comes when I’m not happy with my photos. At times like that, it’s best to steer clear…!
Fortunately, Dan helped me to solve my camera problems, and we were lucky enough to see Giza every night. What a result! I usually don’t like night drives as it’s so hard to take decent pictures, but Mark managed to use his lamp to illuminate the leopard, which helped a lot.
Finding the right settings is often a problem in low light, but I found that shooting wide open with my Sony ⍺1 and 70-200mm f/2.8 lens worked quite well if I set the shutter speed to around 1/320 of a second and underexposed by three stops. The ISO still came in a bit too high, but it’s amazing what you can do with Lightroom and Topaz Labs these days!
Giza is a very talented and successful hunter, and her preferred prey is the Günther’s dik-dik. The first time I saw her, she caught one and took her kill into a tree to eat. Simon managed to get us into a great position, and that let me take a video clip—with the benefit of torchlight!
In general, the pattern was that I’d get a series of shots as she walked towards us, and then she’d kill a dik-dik, so I’d get a similar series of her carrying her prey towards the vehicle. It was great to get so many front-on shots, especially when she was holding a dik-dik in her mouth, and one or two of my friends were suitably impressed. In fact, when I sent Cat’s Eyes to one old friend, he said he thought it was the best shot I’d ever taken!
Sadly, the users of ePHOTOzine disagree. When I posted a couple of my Giza shots, they received fewer than 20 likes! Hey, ho…
I should say at this point that it was so dark that not everything was possible to photograph successfully. One night, Giza caught a dik-dik and jumped across the river from rock to rock, carrying it her mouth the whole way! It was a spectacular moment—but almost impossible to capture. I did take a few shots of the jump, but my ISO was over 100,000! Simon also managed to take a video, but it’ll need a lot of cleaning up in Topaz Labs Video AI, and even that might not be enough…
Other Animals
As well as the black leopard, we also saw one or two plain old spotted leopards, including a male leopard, Giza’s cubs (which aren’t black like their mother) and another cub that was 14 months old (see above). However, our morning game drives were pretty ‘quiet’, as they say. Apart from one sighting of a lioness, there wasn’t much to get excited about. It was feast or famine.
Birds
If there aren’t any animals around on a game drive, my normal solution is to spend my time photographing birds taking off. However, I didn’t get that many opportunities in Laikipia. Simon was constantly telling me the names of various species, and I ended up with a list of over a hundred, but there were very few of my favourites!
As you can see from the gallery (above), I only managed to take four decent shots of birds—and they were all portraits!
Verdict
On the job…!
I enjoyed my time at Laikipia Wilderness. I’d gone there with a plan to photograph Giza, and I saw her six nights in a row, so I was happy with that!
It’s true that we didn’t see much during our morning game drives, and if you want to see the Big Five, cheetahs or African wild dogs, you’d be better off visiting the Masai Mara, the Serengeti or South Luangwa.
However, if you’re like me and just want to catch a glimpse of a beautiful black leopard at night, there’s no better place in the world!
Species
Here are all the species of animals and birds I saw—apart from all the camels and donkeys!
Animals (34)
African bush elephant
Ashy spitting cobra
Barn swallow
Bat-eared fox
Black leopard
Black-backed jackal
Cape buffalo
Common eland
Defassa waterbuck
Dwarf mongoose
East African oryx
Field locust
Golden orb spider
Greater kudu
Grévy’s zebra
Ground squirrel
Guenther’s dik-dik
Hippo
Impala
Leopard
Leopard tortoise
Lion
Mwanza agama
Orange-headed rock agama
Plains zebra
Reticulated giraffe
Rock hyrax
Scrub hare
Slender mongoose
Striped ground squirrel
Striped hyena
Thomson’s gazelle
Unstriped ground squirrel
White-tailed mongoose
Birds (119)
African cuckoo
African fish eagle
African grey flycatcher
African hawk-eagle
African harrier-hawk
African hoopoe
African jacana
African pied wagtail
African spoonbill
Arnott’s barbet
Augur buzzard
Banded parasoma
Bearded woodpecker
Black cuckoo
Black-bellied bustard
Black-capped social weaver
Black-faced sandgrouse
Black-headed heron
Black-headed oriole
Black-necked weaver
Black-winged kite
Blacksmith lapwing
Blue-naped mousebird
Brimstone canary
Brown parrot
Cattle egret
Chestnut sparrow
Chestnut-bellied sandgrouse
Chestnut weaver
Chestnut sparrow-weaver
Cinnamon-breasted rock bunting
Common button-quail
Common ostrich
Common warthog
Crowned lapwing
Diederik cuckoo
Eastern chanting-goshawk
Egyptian goose
Fan-tailed raven
Fischer’s sparrow-lark
Fork-tailed drongo
Gabar goshawk
Goliath heron
Greater blue-eared starling
Green woodpecker
Grey crowned crane
Grey heron
Grey wren-warbler
Grey-backed shrike
Grey-headed kingfisher
Grey-headed social weaver
Grey-headed sparrow
Hadada ibis
Hamerkop
Helmeted guineafowl
Hildebrandt’s starling
Honey guide
Kori bustard
Laughing dove
Lesser striped swallow
Lilac-breasted roller
Little bee-eater
Martial eagle
Meyer’s parrot
Montane nightjar
Northern red-billed hornbill
Northern white-crowned shrike
Paradise flycatcher
Pied cuckoo
Pied kingfisher
Pin-tailed whydah
Pygmy falcon
Red-billed oxpecker
Red-billed teal
Red-cheeked cordon-bleu
Red-chested cuckoo
Red-collared widowbird
Red-throated barbet
Red-winged starling
Ring-necked dove
Rosy-patched bush-shrike
Rosy-throated longclaw
Rufous chatterer
Rüppell’s long-tailed starling
Sacred ibis
Scrub robin
Southern red-billed hornbill
Slate-coloured boubou
Southern red-billed hornbill
Speckle-fronted sparrow-weaver
Speckled mousebird
Spotted eagle owl (or greyish eagle owl)
Spotted thick-knee
Spur-winged lapwing
Straw-tailed whydah
Superb starling
Tawny eagle
Three-banded courser
Three-banded plover
Verreaux’s eagle
Village weaver
Von der Decken hornbill
Vulturine guineafowl
Wattled starling
White-bellied bustard
White-bellied canary
White-bellied go-away-bird
White-browed sparrow-weaver
White-crowned shrike
White-faced whistling-duck
White-headed mousebird
White-rumped shrike
White-rumped swift
Wire-tailed swallow
Yellow bishop
Yellow-billed duck
Yellow-billed stork
Yellow-necked spurfowl
Yellow-vented bulbul
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