Chris Fallows Newsletter – December 2021
2021 Reflections History is full of art celebrating the physical and spiritual beauty of humanity yet traditionally, wildlife has remained a relatively obscure artistic genre with a mainly illustrative or reference-based approach. Throughout millennia we have shared an intrinsic link with wildlife that has inspired us in so many ways, from the very first cave […]
The Sundance Kid
The Mako shark is a maverick in every sense: fast, unpredictable and an outlaw of the open ocean capable of catching even the fastest of gamefish. There are several records of Mako’s with the broken blades of the swordfish, ‘Xiphias gladius’, Gladiator of the sea, imbedded in their sides. Such wounds speak volumes of the […]
Guardians
Few things are more important to a herd of elephants than protecting their young. Time and time again, you watch as the mothers usher their offspring away from perceived dangers, or make sure that they are well fed and have access to water. The mothers are not afraid to let their calves know when they […]
Storm Lord
The Cape of Good Hope at the South Western tip of Africa was described in 1495 by Bartolomeu Dias as Cabo Tormentosa, (“The Cape of Storms”). Less than a hundred years later the famous British explorer, Sir Francis Drake, rounded the same landmark and described it as “A most stately thing and the fairest Cape […]
The Sword of Santiago
In Ernest Hemmingway’s classic novel, The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago is the grizzled old fisherman whose suffering and torment of enduring eighty-four days without catching a fish, is spectacularly ended by his hooking of a huge marlin. For days he drifts further and further from home as he fights the unfatiguing fish. Finally, […]
An African Dream
Been born of Africa, extensive exposure to this continent’s wonder is my most prized gift. I type these words wondering when next I will have the privilege to bend my ear to the deafening silence of the passing of the giants. In each footfall, there is a memory, a rekindling of a step taken before, […]
A View to a Kill
The beauty of watching a predator hunt is not in the kill, but in the preamble building up to it. Each predator has its own skills be it almost invisible silky smooth movement, lightning like speed, crushing power or cunning ambush. If you’ve ever watched a leopard stalking through russet coloured grass where it moves […]
The Point of No Return
Indisputably one of the great gamefish of the world, the marlins and billfish, share a common trait of being able to light up when excited. Each species has its own hunting technique and its own beguiling and entrancing light show that bedazzles and confuses its prey. From a natural history point of view, to be […]
Tuskers and Ticks
Amboseli National Park, Kenya It’s night number ten, and lying cramped alongside each other in our tiny tent at the foothills of Kilimanjaro, Monique and I realize without saying it that these trips to Amboseli are not just trips with photographic goals, but rather inward journeys of discovery. We are once again wild camping with […]
A Tale of Chasing the Orange & Brobdingnagians
A Brobdingnagian is a thing or creature that is abnormally large; and Chasing the Orange is a term for an individual who tries to never miss out on enjoying sunrises and sunsets. The pursuit of both together is what this story is all about. One of my aims for the past three decades has been […]