Photo Details: Male ostrich (Struthio camelus) on the move, Okavango Delta area, Botswana.
Camera: Canon EOS 400D; Lens: Canon EOS 70-300 IS Zoom; Focal Length: 300mm; Shutter speed: 1/320; Aperture: f8; ISO: 200.

Additional Info: The ostrich, the world's largest living bird, cannot fly. But with its powerful thighs and long legs, it can run at speeds up to 70 km/h (about 44 mph) over short distances and over longer distances at around 60 km/h (37 mph). The male is predominantly black with white wing tips and tail (as in the picture above), while the female is a more uniform grey/brown colour.

If you want to find out more about typical leopard habitat and behavior, reproduction and family life, plus how leopards hunt and what they eat, then this article should answer most your questions. A number of leopard pictures have been included to help illustrate the written content.

In addition, the Cheetah Pictures and Baby Animal Pictures have been updated with some additions and changes. Many pictures in the Gallery section were taken some time ago and are of mediocre quality, so need to be replaced with better images that I have available.

On Wednesday, 27 February I will be leaving to spend a week in Mashatu Game Reserve in Botswana's Tuli Block region. Mashatu has gained some international exposure in the past couple of years as a result of the "Wildcam Africa" that National Geographic runs from Pete's Pond during the dry winter months when animals have little access to water.

At this time of year it is extremely hot and there has been more rain than usual, so the area should be looking spectacular. That means there is plenty of water for the animals, so they don't congregate at water holes, while the thicker vegetation can also make viewing difficult. There are always large herds of elephant in the area, so I'm sure we'll still see plenty of these even if we don't see many cats and other predators.