-
10
May
A series of images almost lost…!
A black leopard on a wildlife trail in Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, western Thailand.
It is now late April in the forest of Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, my favorite-place in Thailand. The first rains have come and doused the dangerous forest fires that spread through the sanctuary during the dry hot season starting in March.
A full-frame shot of the leopard.
As usual, I’m setting-up camera traps at various mineral deposits (natural seeps) around a ranger station deep in the interior accessible only by a dirt road. These waterholes are visited by all the large mammals including tiger and leopard, and provide excellent opportunities for some great animal shots.
An elephant on the trail.
As I was going through a few of my old camera traps changing out cards and batteries, I decided to have a quick look at a 2GB card that was in my Sony S600/SSI/1020, one of my first cams using a Pelican box.
Looks like the bigger elephant lost the end of its tail.
Imagine my surprise to see a shot of a ‘black leopard’ in mid-afternoon walking on the trail. Other denizens caught include elephant, tapir, sambar, wild pig and muntjac (barking deer) over a month period back in February to early March of this year. The cam recorded some 400 images on two ‘AA’ lithiums mostly elephants and sambar. It truly was a bonus and I actually closed out the program with this cam.
Mature sambar stag.
I actually forgot to download the card and if I had formatted it, only a recovery program could have got them back as long as I had not filled the card with other images. Been there done that…!
Young elephant checking out the cam.
The black leopard brought back fond memories of this place more than 15 years ago. I was sitting in a tree blind up by the hot springs when a black leopard walked in about 4pm and posed for me at several places for over an hour.
Another sambar stag.
These were in the old days of slide film, and I did not know how good the shots were until the film was processed. Here are a few images from that lucky sequence many years ago.
Asian tapir rear-end.
The morel of this story: Make sure you double-check and download all your cards before formatting, or you may loose some valuable images like I almost did…!
Wild pig in the late afternoon.





































