Two months in the searing summer heat in the Indian desert finally paid off for this wildlife photographer, who was rewarded with a series of rare, intimate shots of a striped hyena in its natural habitat.
Photographer Hardik Shelat, 36, lives in Ahmedabad in the Indian state of Gujarat. He spent two months in early summer visiting his home state’s Little Rann of Kutch desert daily, patiently awaiting a daytime appearance of the lesser spotted striped hyena, after having the rare species on his wish list for two years.
“To spot them is rare because they live in dense dens with multiple entries,” Mr. Shelat told The Epoch Times. “They are nocturnal mammals and generally active at night; they are scavengers….