North Sea Field Notes

Everything here was given away by the people who shot it

An open archive of wildlife photography and field footage from the Okavango, the Serengeti, Etosha and the Great Rift Valley — collected, catalogued and credited.

Recent additions

The latest material catalogued into the archive

Serengeti Landscape with dust and tees

Maximilian Staub

003 Cheetah hissing after a meal in Kalahari Desert Photo by Giles Laurent

Giles Laurent

Zebra in Hluhluwe–Imfolozi Park 03

Bernard Gagnon

Serengeti landscape (1) ()

Richard Mortel from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Acacia Sunset, Omo Valley, Ethiopia ()

Rod Waddington

Loxodonta africana South Luangwa National Park (1)

Geoff Gallice

Masai Mara Giraffe

HasselbladWhisperer

Serengeti-Landscape-2012

Bjørn Christian Tørrissen

Okavango Delta, Botswana ()

Joachim Huber from Switzerland

Wild dog pack, Madikwe ()

flowcomm

Okavango Delta, Botswana2

Joachim Huber

Sunset, Turmi Rd, Omo Valley, Ethiopia ()

Rod Waddington

Browse the full archive →

4countries covered

11protected areas

100%free licences

0adverts or trackers

Field notes

Working notes on photographing wildlife, and on running the archive

Why a waterhole beats a game drive

18 August 2026

Three hours of usable light

6 July 2026

How licences are checked before anything is published

23 May 2026

Storage, bandwidth and why the archive is plain files

11 April 2026

Field guides

Where the material in this archive was recorded, and when

May to August

The Okavango flood

Water from the Angolan highlands reaches the delta months after the rains that produced it, so the wettest landscape in Botswana peaks in the dry season.

January to March

Southern Serengeti

The short-grass plains during calving. Highest predator density of the year and the flattest light, because there is almost no relief to cast shadows.

June to October

Etosha pan

Namibia at its driest. Animals concentrate at a handful of springs along the southern edge, which makes stationary work far more productive than driving.

July to September

Mara river crossings

The northern corridor and the Kenyan side. Crowded, unpredictable and still the single most photographed wildlife event on the continent.