Lynx...again!

Thank you for the kind comments on my lynx images yesterday. As it was after sunset with low light, I had to use high ISO’s but was pleased to find that the new updated denoise feature in Camera Raw/Lightroom did a great job of eliminating the noise, far better than Topaz does. 

This morning we had an early breakfast and then were taken out for a ‘safari’ drive through the reserve. This area is very dry with undulating hills covered in trees that can withstand drought conditions. So I was surprised to find a very pretty valley with a river flowing through it where we were taken to photograph otters. When we were initially told we were going to find otters I thought something had got lost in translation as it does not seem like the usual habitat for otters. Unfortunately we waited over 2 hours for the otters to appear and they never did - but have every other day this week! Patience is certainly required with wildlife photography. Well, we were blessed with seeing the lynx we can’t expect to see it all. I did enjoy watching a kingfisher diving down for fish. 

From there we drove to another area where there are rocky cliff faces. We saw many red deer and fawn deer along the way. When we got there our guide set up his telescope and after us wondering what he was doing, called to show us Griffen vultures that were perched up on the rocky cliff face. I took photos but they were too far away to make an impressive shot, but it was great to see them. 

We then came across a group of Ibex, and got out the car to photograph them. They were very skittish but stayed long enough for us to get photos of them. 

It was a full day out with only a hastily made sandwich at breakfast for our lunch,  and of course no toilets available so I could not drink much. When we got back to the lodge I made myself some peppermint tea (there is no kettle here so we have to boil water on the cooker) and had no sooner drank it when we got a message from the lodge manager to say a lynx was walking towards the hide. We quickly got our gear and went down to the hide. This lynx visited us twice while we were there. I wonder what makes them come and sit in front of the hide as they seem to pose for us and move on, there is no food to attract them here. Once in the hide you cannot leave until the end of the session which was 7.30pm. I was more than ready to relax and have supper. 

It’s been a long day but a good day out. I cannot resist these beautiful cats so I am sorry but it is another image of a  lynx which was taken late this afternoon, the light was better as it was earlier than yesterday that we saw this one. In extras are some ibex.