Today was a short side-track from the landscape and night sky photography.  We got to see a bit of wildlife up close and personal. On one drive into the scrub forests, we came across a very large white rhinoceros. These are quite rare, and we were lucky to find him.  Above, you can see him eyeing us and deciding if we are a threat or not.

Our lodge has two captive cheetahs that were rescued from families that raised them as pets, and then could not care for them any longer. They are not able to be released into the wild, because they do not know how to hunt, having been fed by humans their entire lives. They now live on an open area of several square miles, but still come to the main gate to be fed each morning.  We were allowed to join and watch their feeding.

(photo credit – Ryan Dyar, our tour guide)

As can be seen above, we are able to get quite close to these cheetahs, and the bottom image shows most of our photo tour group clustered capturing images such as shown here.

The original white rhino decided we were not a threat, so he turned his back to us and walked away down the road.  Seems a fitting image to close out this day.