This Week at Angama #159

With the Acropolis in Athens currently blanketed in white and blacked-out Texas in the midst of a power grid failure following a record winter-freeze it’s easy to feel like the world is out of sorts. Even in Johannesburg we’ve endured three weeks of dark skies and relentless rainfall which is wildly unusual for summer. But in the Mara the wildlife scenes continue to play out, ever more dramatically.

Although not covered in snow, we’ve seen plenty of precipitation in the Mara – as a result the river is flowing beautifully and the carpet of grasses glow golden in the early morning light.

Predators and prey alike thrive in the wet season. Thanks to the rains, the especially long grasses nourish the herbivores while providing carnivores with necessary cover that leads to highly successful hunting.

Insects and amphibians are in abundance now and their little lives are playing out from puddle to puddle, while birds enjoy the feast that their bounty brings. This part of the ecosystem thrives from the rains; spending time in the Mara at this time of year reminds us that we’re just a small link in the chain of mother nature.

As heavy clouds gather depositing sheets of rain on the grasslands of the Mara Triangle, photographers smile knowingly with the dramatic lighting and contrasting colour that plays out across the savanna. Landscape photography is rarely so rewarding.

As always, Adam’s photographs from This Week At Angama make those of us in cities yearn for the wilderness – for the earthy smell of the rains that steam from the warm soil, and the soft cacophony of the bushveld chorus. It might be time to head back to the real world.