Malindikenya.net is pleased and proud to present a rare and fantastic night shooting of one of the Italian Masters of nature photography, accompanied by the author's story together with Magalì Manconi.  
The sun has been going down for a few hours now under the African horizon, sending the animals that love the light to sleep, but awakening from the torpor all those who are at ease in the dark.
The small puddle of water is silently waiting for the cautious but thirsty creatures that will approach to drink from its motionless surface, when from the deepest black someone shyly peeps out: it is a genet. Similar to a small feline, with a dotted fur and a long striped tail, it protrudes until it submerges its tongue which, with rapid flashes, collects a few drops of water at a time. A handful of minutes, and it prudently returns to the protective darkness of the forest.
He spends more time, slow and silent, until another guest with big pointed ears peeps out: it is the "bat-eared fox" who finds the courage to venture into the water. Due to its mainly nocturnal habits it is a difficult animal to encounter during the day, and observing it so closely is a rare privilege.
We are inside a special observation and photography hut, built and buried on the edge of a small but inviting waterhole in the most uncontaminated bush between Lake Magadi and Lake Natron. The region is notoriously characterised by particularly high temperatures and, especially during the dry season, this puddle attracts all imaginable varieties of life forms, from the smallest and defenceless to the largest and most ferocious African predators.
Throughout the day, it is a continuous flow of animals and birds, but it is the night that gives the strongest emotions. It is probably the limited visibility given by the spotlights that creates the expectation, that expectation charged with tension that keeps you alert and awake all night long. Hopefully you look in the dark imagining to distinguish moving shadows or approaching animals. You wait and hope, and dream of exceptional sightings, but in the meantime you jerk and rejoice at everything that comes your way. The black buffalo that appears from the darkness like a ghost is a plunge to the heart, an immense and threatening animal. The distance is minimal, and the low vision from the water level accentuates its majesty.
Other hours pass slowly, strangely enough without the regular sightings that kept us alert and awake, but this is the beauty of African nature, where nothing is predictable or taken for granted, and anything can happen without any warning.
By dint of looking in the dark, even the trees give you the illusion of moving and turning into imaginary elephants, and the bushes into hyenas and jackals, but there is nothing but darkness....
It's now four o'clock at night, and tiredness tries to close your eyelids for a restful nap. The mind suggests you let go, drop everything and go to sleep, but you know that if you close your eyes you could lose what you are fighting for.
One blink of an eye, and you still think your mind is playing on yet another illusion, but this time it's not.
From the deepest darkness appeared the true lords of the night, the rulers of African darkness, a majestic pair of leopards.
In an instant the male is there, a few metres away from us, and bends down to drink from the puddle. A few seconds later he is reached by the female, more cautious and circumspect, who also crouches down to quench her thirst.
Time has stopped in front of these magnificent creatures, and we wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world.
The male is an old beast, certainly the biggest leopard I have encountered in years, and from his ostentatious indifferent security it is clear who is the undisputed ruler of the area. A long scar that touches the right eye reveals the characteristic paw of a probable but reckless contender for the beautiful female, whose sad fate I can only imagine.
They are very close, and from our very low position on the water it almost seems as if we can touch them.
The female is the first to quench her thirst, and flexuous as a reed lifts up, she approaches the male, touching him just as if to say "so? Are you hurrying?", and moves away in the dark. He lingers a few more seconds, looking into the night in the direction taken by her, and then follows her in great strides guided by the irresistible call.
In the darkness of the hut we are speechless. The adrenaline rushes by, and all the tiredness is only a distant memory. We are aware that we have witnessed one of the rarest and most exciting shows of the African night, something unique, intense, and perhaps unrepeatable.
The rest of the night flows in the memory of what we witnessed, and when dawn finally paints the sky with the colours that only Africa is capable of giving, we collect our equipment and go to sleep happily....

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