Rhino Photo of the Week

Originally uploaded by There can be only one Rob!

This week’s photo is by Flickr user Rob Wakefield of Stirling, Scotland.

Location: Lake Nakuru, Kenya.

Camera Settings: Auto – I used a compact. It was closest to hand at the time.

The story is that we were on safari in Kenya for our Honeymoon having just been married six days previously (hence I wasn’t wanting to spend too much time faffing around with cameras and the compact was close to hand). We had been given our own private safari van because we were honeymooners, and our driver had taken us to Lake Nakuru on our way to the Masai Mara. I’m still not sure if it was a detour but it was the only place with Rhino that we went to. It was amazing and well worth it if it was a detour.

www.flickr.com/photos/robwakefield/

Rhino Ride

Hassan Sachedina

On Sunday, November 1, Hassan Sachedina dipped the back tire of his bicycle in the chilly waters of the Pacific at Encinitas, California to begin a quest to save one of the world’s most endangered species.

 It was the start of RhinoRide, Hassan’s quest to cycle across half of America to raise awareness for African rhino conservation.

A Kenyan-born PhD trained environmental manager with extensive conservation field experience in Tanzania and Kenya, Hassan’s self-funded ride raised more than $4,600 for rhino conservation (http://www.firstgiving.com/rhinoride), exceeding his original goal of $4,200 – one dollar for every black rhino left in Africa.  

Unseasonably cold weather – at least for Texas, and for someone riding a bicycle across the Lone Star State –  forced Hassan to end the ride in Del Rio, short of his planned stop in San Antonio. 

Over more than 4 weeks and 1,200 miles, Hassan averaged 52 miles a day over some of the most demanding terrain imaginable.  Over the Davis Mountains of West Texas Hassan found “..places (where) the hills were so steep that my front wheel was moving so slowly that my speedometer read zero for periods of time.”

In the small West Texas town of Kent, Hassan bedded down for the night in what he described in his RhinoRide blog as a ‘burger van”, a small trailer known to the regular customers in Kent as ‘Burgers-n-More.’  The hamburger grill kept the ‘burger van’ toasty warm as the outside temperature dipped below freezing over night.

It was an incredible adventure and one you can share when you visit Hassan’s RhinoRide blog at http://www.rhinoride.org/.  And you can find out about RhinoRide, Part Two when you follow Hassan on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HSachedina.

Rhino Photo of the Week

Originally uploaded by hlemmur

This week’s photo was taken by Gareth Codd on September 16, 2009 at Lake Nakuru National Park, Kenya.

This photo was taken at Lake Nakuru National Park, an area of Kenya where the White Rhino population is thriving, so much so that in recent months conservation work has taken place whereby a number of Rhino within the park have been relocated to other areas of Kenya in efforts to boost numbers.

Camera – Canon EOS 40D; Exposure – 1/320; Aperture – f/5.6; Focal Length – 250 mm; ISO Speed – 800

Gareth Codd, Hertfordshire, England
www.flickr.com/garethcodd

Rhino Photo of the Week

Originally uploaded by daniovertherainbow
 

Photo by Dani Barrois, Australia
www.flickr.com/danibarrois

I shot this image in the Lake Nakuru National Park, Kenya. A group of 6 white Rhino were grazing and miling about and something spooked this Rhino. I only managed to take one shot of the moment and this is what I got.

Camera settings: Pentax K-m = ISO-200/Exposure Time-1/500sec/Fstop-F8/Focal Length-113mm