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Thank you all for your wonderful support and gestures of appreciation for my photo “South African Mist” yesterday!

Here's another image rediscovered in the collection of photos I returned from South Africa last year. This time a male Cheetah, one of two brothers hand raised by handlers of the private reserve I was staring at. Originally their mother, who was wild, had come onto this land and given birth to her sons, but sadly not long after a Lion had also wandered into the area and killed the lady Cheetah, fortunately the sons survived to grow up healthy and strong.

Of all the cats cared for at the Big Cat Reserve, these two brothers are the only ones that have free run of the place and are not at any time restricted to an enclosure, being that they are very well habituated to human contact. Though they are free to head off into the greater wilds they seem to prefer staying close to camp.

On a few mornings where I headed out for photography sessions with a couple of Lion cubs and their handler, this Cheetah and sometimes his brother would always tag along, and on the morning I captured this image he'd suddenly taken off to chase down a Guineafowl (a large African game bird), which he did with success, then brought it back to where we were to settle down for breakfast! I captured this frame moments after he'd finished it off.

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