A Hidden World

Most guests at Angama Mara spend their days looking out across the Maasai Mara. Few would imagine that, in the forest behind them, one of the strangest and most elusive mammals on earth is quietly going about its life.

I recently spent ten days at Angama Mara working with The Pangolin Project, photographing the giant pangolins they are fighting to protect. Fewer than 50 individuals remain in the Nyakweri Forest, where the species is under immense pressure.

Our nights began at dusk. With a number of pangolins fitted with tracking tags, our search was more productive than my previous trips — but nothing was guaranteed. We would go to a known burrow and wait, listening to the VHF receiver for the signal that told us a pangolin had emerged. Then came the delicate part: moving in as quietly as possible, staying downwind, speaking only in murmurs, using dim red torches to pick our way through thick forest.

Sometimes the pangolins detected us before we ever saw them and slipped back underground. Sometimes they never emerged at all. But when everything came together, and we finally found one moving through the undergrowth, it felt like stepping into a primordial scene.

Up close, giant pangolins are extraordinary. They are larger than most people expect, and stranger too — their bodies covered in overlapping scales like armour, their movements slow and deliberate, their long tails trailing behind them. Being around them makes you realise how prehistoric they are. Yet despite that dragon-like appearance, my overwhelming impression has always been that they are gentle creatures: shy, vulnerable, and very sweet.

They are also extremely sensitive to disturbance, especially from white light. To photograph them without causing stress, I used an infrared-converted camera and infrared-only flashes. That meant working almost entirely by dim red torchlight.

In the darkness, I could barely make out the animal or the shape of the forest around it, and much of the composition had to be judged by instinct. Then, at the moment the shutter fired, the infrared flash would briefly illuminate the scene — not for my eyes, but for the camera. Only afterwards, in the image itself, could I see the hidden version of the forest I had been trying to photograph.

All the while, we had to remember that the animal's welfare came first. These were never long sessions, but brief, careful encounters on the pangolin's terms.

Spending time with The Pangolin Project made it clear that this work goes far beyond finding the pangolins. It is practical, wide-ranging conservation: monitoring individual animals, protecting forest habitat with local landowners, removing dangerous electric fencing, and patrolling the forest with trained rangers — all while working closely with the surrounding community, because the future of these pangolins is inseparable from the future of the forest they depend on.

That, perhaps, is part of what made the experience so memorable. To be in that forest at night, surrounded by darkness, trying to work silently in the presence of such a rare and secretive creature, felt magical. It felt like stepping briefly into a hidden world — one that has existed there all along, just beyond the notice of most who visit the Mara.

Photographing giant pangolins in the Nyakweri Forest was an extraordinary privilege. They are among the most secretive and rarely seen animals I have ever worked with, and spending time alongside The Pangolin Project gave me a real appreciation for the patient fieldwork needed to understand and protect them.

I’m hugely grateful to Angama for supporting my work and helping bring attention to such a remarkable species and landscape.

For anyone interested in seeing more of my wildlife photography, including other camera trap projects with elusive animals, you can find me on Instagram at @willbl or at willbl.com