Time for the Birds

Yaya's Cub in the Undergrowth

Setting out on Wednesday, we weren’t aware that it was going to be a slow day, but that’s exactly how it panned out. In fact it was nearly two hours out from camp before we exposed a frame.

Our first encounter was with a female Lion named Yaya and her two cubs, only two months old. Understandably she was keeping them well hidden, although they could be seen moving fairly freely in the undergrowth. It presented us with a difficult decision, did we move on, or did we stay put in the hope of some decent shots. We came down on the side of waiting; after all, if we did get a shot, the ‘cute’ box was likely to be well and truly ticked.

There wasn’t much action being relayed to us about other sightings so we were happy to stay, but on this occasion our patience wasn’t rewarded. Yaya decided to move the cubs deeper into the vegetation to a point where it was difficult to even see her and so after more than an hour we decided to move elsewhere.

Soon after we left we encountered a Crowned Plover beside the track, first bird of the day and posing well in nice light. A wee bit distant, but we can’t have everything. Next up was a lone Elephant and a wonderful opportunity to take some more unusual shots as he moved through the long grass with just the open plains as a backdrop. It was a sighting to savour for sure.

Then it was back to the birds and around 20 minutes passed until we had a Spur-winged Lapwing (Plover if you prefer) beside the track. We had one clear shot before it moved into some longer grass and gave the autofocus a hard time. This brought us nicely around to breakfast time, always an enjoyable part of the day eating our cereals under the shade of a tree, that is if you can find a spare tree.

Over breakfast we discussed the plan for the next part of the drive having been told of a Rhino sighting quite near to our location. Naturally this was of interest as although we have seen both White and black Rhino before, a sighting in this part of the Mara is rare. Resuming our drive, we soon found ourselves in the area where it had been spotted, but instead of a mammal, the bird theme continued.

At first we only spotted one bird and it was a while before we realised there was actually a pair of Black-chested Snake Eagles. We got a huge number of flight shots, albeit most of which were high key due to the overcast conditions. We saw a number of failed food pass attempts and that seemed to spoil the party as they split up and moved away.

What followed was a frustrating couple of hours unsuccessfully searching for the Rhino, punctuated by a sighting of a Spotted Water Thick Knee that yielded no images, a Grey Crowned Crane and a solitary Buffalo amongst a pod of Hippos on a sand bank. Nothing for it, it was time for lunch.

It was fully two hours later that we next exposed any pixels and this time one of Yaya’s cubs obliged. I’m not sure that ‘obliged’ is the right word, it was a fleeting glimpse that allowed me to shoot four frames, one of which I’ve used above. It was soon obvious that we faced the same situation as we had in the morning and as the time was approaching when the lodges were coming out for their afternoon game drives, we decided to leave them alone and look elsewhere.

We headed back to the Marsh area near Governors Camps and as we drove down the main track, we found three juvenile Hyenas playing and enjoying the sunshine outside of their den. Their den is actually in a drainage pipe that crosses underneath the track, but it seems to suit them quite well. We spent the better part of thirty minutes with them and then moved on to our actual target, a coalition of 5 male Lions. To say they were uncooperative would be an understatement, they did what Lions do by day - sleep - and in the long grass we had no chance.

So that wrapped up our day, save for one encounter on the way back to camp. I don’t like to speak out of turn, but this, to me, was somewhat bizarre. We met up with a vehicle loaded with Japanese tourists, nearly all of whom were wearing face masks. Now I’m willing to believe back home they have pollution issues in their cities, but the air in the Maasai Mara couldn’t be much fresher. An amusing end to what was a slow day.

A Plan Comes Together - nearly

Bella 2 between trees

Day 4 and a pattern is starting to emerge. Head for Kaboso’s last known location and see what happens. This time we were lucky and soon after arriving she emerged from the undergrowth. This time she was alone, with no sign of her cubs, but the sighting was superb. She came close, very close and gave us frame-filling shots at 135mm. All too soon she disappeared into dense undergrowth and it was time to move on.

As we turned to head off to our next sighting, we saw both Black-backed Jackal and Spotted Hyenas and with the time not yet 7am, they were bathed in beautiful golden light. An opportunity not to be missed with the Hyenas positioned to give us some backlit shots as well as fully lit images.

Next up was the Double Cross/Enkoyonai Lion pride, but a different situation to most of the encounters with this pride. Rather than Olbarnoti enthusiastically mating at every opportunity, this sighting centred on the other male in the pride, Lolpapit. Overnight, the pride had killed a Zebra and Lolpapit was having his fill of the carcass.

Waiting in the wings were a couple of Black-backed Jackals and a group of Hyenas impatiently waiting their turn with the remains. This caused some amusement as both groups pushed their luck by getting closer and closer, but Lolpapit was wise to their antics. He would allow them to reach a certain distance and then let them know in no uncertain terms that they should back off. They did, but it wouldn’t be long before they tried gain and the whole scenario was repeated.

The next part of the plan had been to make a determined effort to seek out another female Leopard named Bahati. She was located some distance away and we had already tried to find her once and been unsuccessful. However, there had been sightings reported and we decided to try again.

On the way we had a nice sighting of Hartebeest before we stopped to have our bush breakfast. Moving on, we arrived at the area Bahati had been sighted in and spent a while photographing a lone Hippo on rocks. Very quickly the call came that Bahati had been sighted and it was game-on. We had a memorable session, but it turned out this wasn't Bahati, but her daughter Bella 2. She moved back and forth between two trees, first settling in one and then coming down, walking across open ground for about 50 metres and climbing the other.

Clearly we had to move away to have our lunch and we did so hoping that she would still be there, or close by, on our return. Finding a solitary tree to provide shade was a bit of challenge, but eventually we were successful and on climbing out of the vehicle a macro opportunity presented itself. Deep in the grass was a pair of African Reed Frogs, so in the absence of macro lenses the 100-400mm zooms were pressed into service.

Understandably, lunch was a fairly hasty affair as we were all keen to get back to where Bahati had been seen the previous day and soon we were underway again. When we arrived at our previous location, we were pleased to see Bella 2 was still there and actually gave us shots of her in the very top of the tree. Bahati was nowhere to be seen. However, as we moved around to change angles and backgrounds, we noticed no more than 100 metres away was a male Lion, sleeping. Our guide identified this individual as Long Face.

It’s no surprise we spent the rest of the afternoon moving between the two animals capturing some very nice shots, before Long Face awoke and decided to move. This was our signal to do the same as the grass was quite long and the sun getting ever lower in the sky meant the chance of some different shots. We followed him for some distance until we got to a point we felt he should be left alone and we should head back to the lodge. We had quite a distance to travel.

It wasn’t an uneventful journey, nor was it the first time we have had an ‘issue’ on the way home. Back in November we sustained a puncture and with all three of us out of the vehicle, the jack in place and the wheel removed, a male Lion walked past not 100 metres away, totally ignoring us. On this occasion, the mishap befell someone else and involved another vehicle that had become stuck in floodwater on the track. A couple of other vehicles turned up to help, but none of us were able to pull or push the vehicle out. Next day we learned a specialist vehicle had got it out around two hours after our attempts and the guests aboard were late for dinner that night.

Kaboso Again

Serval in the long grass

Setting off on our third full day, the only sensible plan was to head for where we had last seen Kaboso. That was after all what we had decided over dinner the previous night. But we never got there.

As we headed that way we got a call to say a Serval had been spotted and we had some ground to make up to get to the location. I have a pecking order in my mind where a Leopard sighting will always get precedence over a Cheetah sighting, which in turn trumps a Lion sighting. However, a Serval, Caracal or Wildcat will always take precedence due to their rarity.

On this occasion we were lucky and the Serval was still in open grassland when we arrived, albeit difficult to locate due to the length of the grass. We spent almost 30 minutes and took a huge number of images in the hope of capturing something that wasn’t affected by the long grass. Needless to say a large number have been deleted.

Once the cat had melted away into the grass, we headed off to our next sighting and unsurprisingly it was the Double Cross/Enkoyonai pride of Lions and Olbarnoti once more mating with his lady friend. After spending some time with them (how many shots of mating Lions do we actually need), it took us nicely into time for a relaxed bush breakfast. Little did we know just what was to follow.

With the inner man satisfied, we set off once more and soon got word of a Cheetah sighting, which pleased me straight away. When we arrived, we found it was a Cheetah we had not seen before, called Mugie. This turned out to be a sighting that lasted more than three and a half hours and ended in the kill shown in the image attached to last week’s post.

There was a large herd of Thomson’s Gazelles on the open plain and at first Mugie was well hidden from them. He soon broke cover, although still at a distance from which he couldn’t successfully hunt, but gradually he edged closer. The natural grazing of the gazelles took them away from him, but then inexplicably they started to move back towards his position. Other animals on the plain were well aware of his presence and keeping a watchful eye on him.

To the left of our position was a row of bushes and eventually Mugie walked down the other side of the bushes out of sight of the gazelles. Nearly two and a half hours had passed by now, but then suddenly there was action and we had to hurriedly reposition. There were some stray gazelles near the bottom of the line of bushes and it was these that Mugie had managed to stalk until he got close enough to be able to strike. He actually took the gazelle down as it ran into a flooded area and swiftly dragged it into a bush where we witnessed the kill with Mugie’s jaws clamped around the gazelle’s throat. Once he was sure it was dead, he set about lunch, reminding us that we were an hour and a half late having ours. We withdrew and went off to find some welcome shade.

Once lunch was over we set off to find the Fig Tree Pride of lions, which we managed quite easily, beside the Talek River. They were accompanied by the most obnoxious smell imaginable, emanating from a giraffe carcass they had secreted in the bushes. It was unbearable and we had to retreat to a different spot where the air was much fresher.

The Fig Tree pride is quite large and at this time had a number of cubs. They were under various bushes in the location and just when you thought you had counted how many there were, another would appear. We spent much of the remaining afternoon with them and shot a number of images of black-faced cubs and mothers washing them. The vultures started to congregate, but still the lions would go back to the carcass clearly not ready to give up the kill just yet.

Moving away, a rather handsome Elephant entertained us for a while, but it was time to head back to camp. On the way we decided to call in to Mugie’s last location and he had certainly had a good feed. We found him easily enough in the open not ten metres from his kill, very sleepy and with a very full belly. Another superb day in the Mara ended.