Everyone has their favourite photos, and this is a sentimental one of mine.
Nkuringo was an old silverback of the first mountain gorilla group we visited in 2008, the Nkuringo Group at South Bwindi in Uganda. There were sixteen in the group then, but the leadership belonged to another younger silverback called Safari.
Nkuringo was the last of the group we spent time with, of some fifteen minutes, and was stripping the vines of leaves, not much bothered by his visitors. He was very old and seemed to have an injury to his mouth which we later learned had obtained in a fight two years earlier, leaving him slightly paralysed and making it difficult to eat.
If anyone still thinks that gorillas have the persona of a 1933 style King Kong, then they’d soon be persuaded otherwise by this guy.
Sadly, Nkuringo died of natural causes in April 2008 aged forty-nine, just six weeks after our visit.
Taken using a Nikon D300 with a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens at 200mm, f/3.3, 1/125 and ISO 560.
Related Posts:Nkuringo II
Kigoma in the Rain
Mountain gorillas gallery
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I just love all your work.Just beautiful.
Sally
Your wildlife photos are superb ! I’m also glad for your integrity in not trying to alter what you see. Magnificent !
Read your blog on photo-africa..great stuff !!
will be visiting your blog often.
Grant
He looks quite lonely and sad at this moment in time , a beautiful guy.