Wildebeest Pictures

The black wildebeest or white-tailed gnu (Connochaetes gnou) is much less common and is found only on South African wildlife reserves and private game farms.

In the national parks of southern Africa, wildebeest can often be sighted, usually in small herds, which makes it fairly easy to get wildebeest photos while on safari there.

Taking Wildebeest Pictures
When photographing groups of wildebeest, a medium telephoto zoom lens, around 70-200mm, will normally suffice. To get good images of individual wildebeest, or close-ups of the head and shoulders, then you'll need a longer lens, in the 300mm to 400mm range.

On the vast plains of East Africa, whether in Tanzania's Serengeti National Park or Kenya's Masai Mara, the annual wildebeest migration offers a totally different set of photographic opportunities and challenges.

During the migration, the wildbeest congregate in herds of many thousands as they move in search of better grazing. While this is visually astounding and is recognized as one of the world's great wildlife spectacles, it's also extremely difficult to portray in static pictures.

To accurately record the magnitude of the wildebeest migration, you need a wide angle lens to capture the spread of animals that can fill your viewfinder from corner to corner. To eliminate the wasted space above and below the main subject, it's a good idea to take a series of pictures and stitch them into a panorama.

For most wildlife photographers, the ultimate of course is to get shots of the famous wildebeest river crossings. Here the animals bunch in hordes before leaping into the treacherous Grumeti or Mara rivers where crocodiles and other predators lie in wait.

It's impossible to predict where or when the nervous animals will cross, so there's a large amount of luck involved in taking pictures of the wildebeest river crossings. For those fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time, a long lens works extremely well as it compresses the subject, showing the wildebeest closely bunched together on the banks and in the river.

To find out more about Wildebeest, try the search box below, left.

Wildebeest Picture Captions
Row 1:
1.Wildebeest heading for waterhole, Mkuzi Game Reserve, SA
2.Wildebeest at sunset, Tala Game Reserve, SAfrica
3.Wildebeest in winter grass, Tala GR, SAfrica

Row 2:
1.Wildebeest cow and calf, Kruger National Park, SA
2.Wildebeest calf, Kruger National Park, SAfrica
3.Wildebeest looking back, Kruger National Park, SA

Row 3:
1.Wildebeest heading to waterhole, Mkuzi GR, SAfrica
2.Wildebeest drinking from waterhole, Mkuzi GR, SA
3.Wildbeest pair drinking, Mkuzi GR, South Africa

Row 4:
1.Wildebeest on Serengeti Plains, Tanzania
2.Wildbeest at waterhole, Serengeti NP, Tanzania
3.Wildebeest massing, Serengeti NP, Tanzania

Row 5:
1.Wildbeest milling around, Serengeti NP, Tanzania
2.Wildebeest herd take fright, Serengeti Plains
3.Wildebeest migration, Grumeti, Tanzania

Row 6:
1.Wildebeest pair take fright, Serengeti Plains
2.Wildebeest side view, Serengeti Plains, Tanzania
3.Wildebeest herd on run, Serengeti NP, Tanzania

Row 7:
1.Wildebeest running, Tuli Block, Botswana
2.Wildebeest herd at waterhole, Mkuzi GR, SA
3.Wildebeest, side view, Mkuzi GR, SAfrica

Use of Gallery Pictures
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