Mihaela Limberea Photography

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Mihaela Limberea Photography

Hello! I am Mihaela Limberea, a nature and wildlife photographer. http://www.limberea.com/

I live on the Swedish island of Lidingö (just outside Stockholm) with my husband and Minette, the tabby kitten. After a successful +20-year career at Microsoft, I left the corporate world in 2020 to pursue my lifelong dream of full-time nature and wildlife photography. Now, I dedicate myself to chasing great light, seeking beauty in the ordinary, and forging meaningful connections with nature thro

ugh my lens. When I’m not working on a photo project, I enjoy reading, writing poetry, and gardening.

01/09/2026

I photographed this cheetah at Tswalu Kalahari Reserve in South Africa, and what struck me most wasn't the pose but the stillness, that watchful, unhurried look cheetahs get when they're taking stock of their surroundings.

Cheetahs rely on vision more than scent, and it shows in how much time they spend simply looking. Those black lines running from its eyes down to its mouth aren’t decoration; they cut the glare, so the cat can keep watching straight into the midday sun.

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🐆 Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus)
📸 Canon R5M2 & Canon RF100-500mm F4.5-7.1 L IS USM
📍Tswalu Kalahari Reserve, South Africa

25/08/2026

These two kept me entertained for a good while. Two young elephants, both dusted red from rolling in the soil, and clearly in the mood for a wrestling match. The smaller one grabbed its companion's trunk, lifted a foreleg for extra leverage, and pulled with everything it had. The older one barely reacted; you can see it still has grass hanging from its mouth, chewing through the whole thing.

I love these moments because they're so recognizable. Anyone who has watched siblings, puppies, or kids at a playground knows this exact dynamic: one determined instigator, one tolerant target.

Play like this isn't trivial for elephants. It's how they learn coordination and build the relationships that structure a herd for decades. Serious work, disguised as fun.

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🐘 African Bush Elephant
📸 Canon R5M2 & Canon RF100-500mm F4.5-7.1 L IS USM
📍Madikwe Game Reserve, South Africa

19/08/2026

World Photography Day traces back to August 19, 1839, when the Daguerreotype became the first process to fix a permanent image with a camera. I put together ten photos from the past year that I keep coming back to, not because they're technically perfect, but because I remember exactly what it felt like to take each one. A grebe half-swallowed by fog on a lake so still it barely counted as water. A lion's face filling the whole frame, eyes doing all the work. A squirrel clutching a chestnut like it had just won an argument.

I'd love to hear which one catches your eye, and if you've got a photo of your own from this year that you still think about, tell me about it below.

17/08/2026

I’m so excited to announce that two of my photographs are finalists in the Swedish Photography Championship 2026 in the wildlife category. This means they’re among the top ten wildlife photos in Sweden this year. I still need to pinch myself!

I would love to show you the pictures, but unfortunately, I’m not allowed to yet. All images are kept under wraps until the results are announced on October 3rd.

Please keep your fingers crossed for me. Thank you!

11/08/2026

We spent the whole afternoon tracking this pride at Tswalu Kalahari Reserve. We knew the lions were lying under bushes and trees somewhere in that area, most likely sleeping and completely invisible in the tall grass. Lions are champion resters: up to twenty hours a day, if you let them.

Then the light started to drop, and the mood shifted. This lioness got up, stretched, and set off down the red sand track, her cubs following at their own pace behind her. Two adult males and another lioness with her cubs were nearby, outside the frame. She’d picked the track for a reason: lions use cleared paths like this one to move quietly at dawn and dusk, without the crunch of dry grass underfoot. The evening hunt had begun, and we watched them disappear as the mountains turned blue behind them.

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🦁 Lion (Panthera leo)
📸 Canon R5 & Canon RF 70-200mm F2.8 L IS USM
📍Tswalu Kalahari Reserve, South Africa

04/08/2026

There's a colony of habituated meerkats at Tswalu Kalahari Reserve, and I was looking forward to watching them in the morning as they start their day sunning, grooming themselves, and foraging. They didn't disappoint, and I spent several hours low on the ground, trying to keep pace with these oh-so-fast small animals.

This is one of my favorite meerkat photos, because it's not doing what you usually expect from a meerkat photo: standing sentinel. I wanted to show something different; you've probably seen thousands of meerkats standing at attention before.

Lying flat like this is mostly about temperature: they press their bellies to the cool sand to shed heat once the day warms up, or sprawl out to soak up the sun early on when it's still cold. The sand on its' face is from digging; meerkats have non-retractable claws built for excavating insects and larvae out of the ground, and they're immune to some scorpion and snake venom, which is a really useful trait when that's most of what you eat. And if you look closer, you’ll see the tiny ants 🐜 🐜 clinging to its’ whiskers.

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🆔 Meerkat (Suricata suricatta)
📸 Canon R5M2 & Canon RF100-500mm F4.5-7.1 L IS USM
📍Tswalu Kalahari Reserve, South Africa

28/07/2026

One of the small surprises of photographing in the Kalahari: cheetahs in trees. They're not built for climbing (their claws don't retract like a leopard's), but give them a sloping, weathered trunk like this one, and they'll take the high ground gladly. Better view, better odds.

This one sat for a good while in the early light, watching something far off in the bush. I like that about cheetahs: they always seem to be paying attention to a world slightly beyond the one I can see. I took my photos and mostly just watched it watch.

If you've spent time around cheetahs, I'd love to hear what struck you about them. For me it's always that gaze.

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🐆 Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus)
📸 Canon R5M2 & Canon RF100-500mm F4.5-7.1 L IS USM
📍Tswalu Kalahari Reserve, South Africa

21/07/2026

Despite many trips to Africa, I have never seen wild dogs, unless you count some white tails disappearing into the tall grass. So, imagine my joy and happiness when our guide and tracker not only found them for us but also managed to stay with them for four hours.

We set out at 5:30 in the morning to look for them before they became active. When we finally found them, we watched as they searched for prey, sizing up gnus and oryxes and nearly catching a young oryx that managed to get away. Afterward, they played and socialized before resting in the shade as the day grew hotter.

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The African wild dog (Lycaon pictus) is one of the world’s most endangered mammals. According to the IUCN, only 3,000 to 5,500 remain. African wild dog numbers are notoriously hard to pin down, and estimates vary quite a bit. However, they all agree they are endangered.

Human expansion and habitat loss have limited them to small areas in southern and eastern Africa, though they once lived across the continent.

To witness African wild dogs in the savanna is a rare privilege, as they are notoriously elusive and require massive home ranges. Experts say their social structure is one of the strongest among animals. Unlike other predators that compete within the group, wild dogs focus on the pack’s survival instead of individual power. Before hunting, they have "greeting ceremonies" with high-pitched sounds, muzzle-licking, and play-fighting. This helps the pack get in sync and strengthens their bonds. They are also very caring; the whole pack looks after injured members and pups, and hunters will even bring back food for those who stay at the den.

* African wild dogs are the most successful hunters in the world, with a kill rate of roughly 80%, far outperforming lions who succeed in only about 20-30% of their attempts.
* They communicate through a series of high-pitched chirps and bellows that sound more like birds or monkeys than dogs.
* Their large, rounded radar-like ears are used both for acute hearing and for dissipating heat in the hot savanna environment.

30/06/2026

A male common blue butterfly (Polyommatus icarus) perched on an Echinacea purpurea ‘Magnus’ flower photographed in my garden. This is what I love about our house: a wildlife garden filled with insects, butterflies, small and not-so-small animals (deer love my flowers, too!), and numerous birds! I need only to step out to find something to photograph!

Common blue males typically have wings that are blue above, with a black-brown border and a white fringe, similar to the one in my photo. The females are usually brown above with a blue dusting and orange spots.

These butterflies drink nectar from plants like clovers and bird’s-foot trefoil. Their caterpillars eat leguminous plants and even team up with ants for protection. The adults only live about three weeks, and the males often chase each other around to defend their territory.

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🦋 Male common blue butterfly (Polyommatus icarus)
🌸 Echinacea (Echinacea purpurea var. Magnus)
📸 Canon R5M2 & Canon RF100-500mm F4.5-7.1 L IS USM
📍Lidingö, Sweden

23/06/2026

The regal profile of a hunter waiting for the perfect moment. You don't need to show the whole animal to feel her weight.

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🦁 Lion (Panthera leo)
📸 Canon R5M2 & Canon RF100-500mm F4.5-7.1 L IS USM
📍Madikwe Game Reserve, South Africa

Address

Stokes Road
Adelaide, SA

Website

https://www.limberea.com/, https://www.linkedin.com/in/mihaela-limberea-665a0439/, https://buymeacoffee.com/mihaelalimbe

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