We were in Serengeti National Park, watching a herd of wildebeest, numbering several hundred, running past. I was experimenting with some pan and blur shots when I saw some movement in the long grass. Moments later a pair of ears popped up and I realized that we were not the only interested spectators! This cheetah watched intently, unseen by the wildebeest as they ran by. We watched as he stalked through the grass, creeping up on the herd, but then decided not to try and attack them. I’m sure a cheetah would be quite capable of taking down a wildebeest calf but may have been dissuaded by the presence of so many adults on the move, or maybe he just wasn’t hungry enough.
Shortly after taking this shot a second cheetah also popped up from the long grass, the two later walked out into a clearing close to our vehicle and wandered past quite unconcerned by our presence.
This image was captured with the Canon 5D with the 500mm F4.0 lens plus 1.4x tele extender at F6.3, the shutter speed was 1/500 second at ISO 50. The image was had very little post-processing, a very slight increase in colour saturation, vibrance and “clarity” in Adobe Camera Raw followed by a modest cropping and some selective sharpening in Photoshop CS3.