The Lion Lady® - Photographs of African Wildlife by Sharon van Sinderen Lyon

This year I spent 30 days from January 9, 2000 through February 8, 2000 just in the central Serengeti at the Serena Serengeti. I did a game drive each day starting at 6:00 am and a slide show presentation nightly to over 1700 Serena Serengeti guests and met people from over 23 countries and 25 states. I saw a total of 505 lions, 103 cheetahs, 66 leopard, 2 genet cat, 2 civet cat, 2 serval cat... a grand total of 680 cats. a charging elephant, several successful chase and kills.

I shot 57 rolls of slides using Kodak professional E100VS and 37 rolls of Kodak professional print film portra 160 VC. I use a Nikon N90s and a Nikon N60 as camera bodies, a Tamaron 200-400 f4.6 lens and my lens of choice is my Nikon 1000 f 11. I use a monopod on the small lens and a tripod as a monopod for the big lens. I usually shoot from the back seat of the vehicle out the side window. I travel with a guide/driver in the vehicle, as it is still very difficult to hold the big lens steady with just two people in the vehicle.

I started tracking and recording every lion, leopard and cheetah and it's location and sex (if I could). It became a game to see where the animals would be and how many days in a row we could find the same animals. I wanted to get to know the area and to be able to identify Maasai Kopje from Simba Kopje or Moru Kopje and Mokoma Hills or Lake Magadi.

The first day I arrived at 11:00 and by 11:30 I was taking my first photograph of my first leopard. I knew that this trip was going to exceed my expectations, as it already had. I saw at least one leopard a day and 20 out of the 30 days we saw at least two and as many as four a day. The largest group we saw was a mother and three babies probably 9 months old. We also saw a mother with two tiny babies probably 1 month old.

The first week I saw 12 leopard, the second week I saw 10 leopard, the third week I saw 18 leopard, the fourth week I saw 22 leopard. The largest group of cheetahs was a mother and six cubs that were almost full-grown. I plan to return again next year to the Serena Serengeti for the months of January and February and will be presenting another slide show, "Serengeti 2000".