The Watcher

After spending a good portion of the day in the less visited western side of Etosha, I had to drive east to Okaukuejo Camp, where I was staying for the following couple of days. It's a roughly 3 hour drive, assuming you don't make any stops, but of course, with a number of waterholes along the way, and amazing wildlife, I made a large number of stops. As the western sector of Etosha is a bit restricted, there were hardly any other people around, making me feel like I had the park to myself.

As I got close to my destination, I spotted this black-backed jackal walking around near the roadside. To my delight, he decided to take a break and sit down for a bit. The black-backed jackal is the smallest of the three jackal species that still exist today. The eyes appear to size you up and peer directly into your soul.

About this photo: I took this from an SUV I had rented while driving around Namibia. Using my Canon 5D MIII with a 100-400mm lens, I added in a 1.4x extender to give a 560mm effective zoom. The downside to the extender on this lens is that it requires manual focusing, which I found to be quite tiring for such a long and heavy lens.

Black-backed jackal in Etosha National Park.