Raising the bar

Monday, November 5

Last night the lions continued to taunt me all night.  I heard them several times but only looked at the time twice, to see how long until I could go find them.  Once at 4 and once at 5:30, just before I woke up.  I slept without the aid of pharmaceuticals last night but didn’t sleep through the obvious feline reasons.  The hippos outside my tent also were quite loud and right under my doorstep all night.  They apparently never left the river to go eat, or if they did they left someone here at all times to keep up the hippo chorus.

I realized when my coffee was delivered that I’d forgotten my anti-malarial last night.  I don’t know if I’ve ever done that before.  Well, that’ll make things exciting....

We were in the vehicle for 6:15 sharp.  The sun was already up but it was still ahead of being that golden light, so off we went.  Ping pretty quickly found two lionesses from the Paradise Pride II.  This is half of the splintered Paradise Pride that lives quite near camp.  One of the two lionesses was perched elegantly on a termite mound in the perfect golden light so we were off to a promising start.  I never tire of just sitting and watching lions, even if this is all they’re doing.  At one point it seemed like she wanted to go hunt a warthog across the river but it ended up being sort of half hearted when the warthog wouldn’t meet her halfway.

We saw a large hippo out of the river with a large wound to his rump.  It looked fresh and Ping said it seems unlikely that the hippo would take to the water today in order to prevent infection and the fish getting into it.

What is left of the famous (via Big Cat Diary) Marsh Pride, which I was eager to see if only in name, has recently been taken over by 6 strong males.  These same 6 have also taken over the Ridge Pride and are heading for the Double Crossing Pride in Olare Motorogi too.  They are a force.  We came upon one of those 6 males honeymooning with a female from the Ridge Pride lying quite near the road snoozing.  We stayed around to watch them mate, which only took about 1/2 hour to happen again.  It must be late in the honeymoon for them to be taking so long to get around to it again.  Early in their mating they’d be doing it every 15 minutes or so.  In three months’ time there’ll be some new Ridge Pride cubs.

Ping then wanted to head to the Kiboso area, where Kiboso (aka Pretty Girl) the leopard’s two two-year old cubs are.  We pulled up to a small cluster of vehicles (maybe 3-4)  and seemed to have just missed some action because a bunch of hyena were running around excitedly or nervously.  We waited a while because Ping really thought this would be a good opportunity to hunt because there were some warthogs with little piglets just ripe for the taking near her.  We circled the dense bushes where we thought she might be and finally I spotted her coming up out of the ravine. Then the madness ensued.  More vehicles materialized and I suspect the word was out on social media or What’s App because even more came, tearing through the Mara and stirring up dust.  In the end she was practically surrounded, with the ravine behind her and a tight circle of cars blocking almost all of her sightline to the plains.  If she wanted warthog she couldn’t see it yet.  Two vehicles from one operator (Africa Keys I’m looking at you) were really cutting her off and being aggressively.  A bunch of drivers tried to get them to back off but they wouldn’t. It was kind of sad.  Ultimately she gave up.  One of my vehicle mates was very upset and wanted to leave, but then as the leopard started walking straight towards us back to the ravine, she decided to take a few more photos before we departed on principle.

This leopard, even though it is already two years old, was so much smaller than any other “adult” leopards I’ve seen.  She went right across the front of our vehicle so she was quite close to me.  Gorgeous creature.  I’m sorry for all the raucous that was caused, although Ping was incredibly respectful.

We stopped to have a bush breakfast overseen by five very inquisitive giraffes.  I had crepes, apple muffins, hard boiled eggs, beans and bananas with coffee.  It was delicious but even better to just get out of the vehicle and stand.

We went back to where the leopard was and Ping got excited to see a mother warthog with 2 tiny piglets running around right in prime leopard territory.  He said that if the leopard saw the piglets she certainly wouldn’t let the opportunity pass.  We waited about 1/2 hour and the piglets went back into their hole.  Either the leopard was totally asleep or had gone elsewhere.

Our next sighting was quick.  I have in my notes that it was a Ridge Pride female with three cubs, two males and a female.  They were doing nothing but trying to keep cool in the shade of a small shrub.

Not far from there we found a larger part of the Ridge Pride, with a pride male with a golden mane who is another of the six males that have taken over Marsh and Ridge Prides.  There was the pride male plus eight others.  One of the younger males, with just the start of a mane, was stuck sitting just outside the shade of the acacia tree.  Ping read the situation and said that the other weren’t going to let him into the shade because the pride male didn’t like him.  The younger male was at that uncomfortable point of almost getting kicked out and the pride still letting him stay.  The pride male had a different opinion.

We sat here for easily 2 hours total in the hot midday sun.  It was worth it because the dynamics were amazing.  There was a palpable tension there, despite the fact that 5 female lions were passed out cold.  That pride male didn’t close his eyes long enough to lose track of the hot, panting young male out in the sun.  Ping told us to stay alert because an altercation was going to happen when we least expected it.  I took the opportunity to practice metering my camera, taking it off auto with continuous shooting (cue foreboding music here) and otherwise killing time taking photos.  At one point I put the camera down and shut it off.  I was bleeding through batteries and memory cards like I had an endless supply.  And just when I least expected it, something triggered the male and he went after the young boy out in the sun.  Some pretty vicious growling and yelping ensued and the young male ended up assuming his position back out in the sun, no one else really bothered with this.  And I missed it all.  By the time I picked the camera up, powered it on and waited to zoom a bit, it was over.  But I did see it all.   The young male pooped in his spot and the pride male peed against the tree, both an interesting display of territory.  And both sat down where they did that.  Strange.

Ping felt like the battle wasn’t over so asked us if we wanted to stay.   We did, especially if there is a chance this could get more vicious.  Unbeknownst to us, he’d texted the camp and had a full hot meal brought to us, along with Flavian who served us and got to stay with us for the rest of the day.  We ate in the vehicle.  For me it was a lentil and carrot salad, potato salad and ziti with onion and fresh red and yellow pepper.  I didn’t think I was hungry but it hit the spot.

A female lion came over to greet the young male who had slowly crept into a small slice of shade.  She nuzzled him and then plopped down next to him.  Well, the pride male didn’t like this.  He eventually launched at the younger male and then the female (perhaps for her disloyalty?).  I caught the whole thing but since I never put my camera back on continuous shoot, I got exactly one shot.  It looks good, but who knows until I get back home on my PC.  Ah well.  I really ought to know better!  But I did see both encounters, which is a mental memory I can’t erase.  We decided to leave when all but the pride male were left under the tree.  He appeared to have earned no friends, but seemed happy enough being the only one to sleep in the shade.

Next we headed over the marsh to see the Marsh Pride.  Yaya, a veteran Marsh Pride lioness has two 6 month old cubs that Ping hoped to see.  He found her pretty quickly along the edge of the marsh, but they were all sound asleep.  We waited to see if they’d wake, but other than stirring slightly and rolling over, they didn’t.

There was another mating pair in the marsh area, but they were sound asleep and hadn’t moved in a while, so we moved on. Ping spotted something else.

We saw a lone lioness heading away from the marsh and toward the plains.  It seemed she had her eye on some zebra further along the marsh.  Two other females ended up joining her. The first lioness seemed serious, crouching low, head down, creeping straight on to the zebra.  The second lioness didn’t seem to get the message and was sort of boldly strolling around, half intent on a hunt.  In the end, the eland and the zebra that was the target figured it out and the hunt was scratched.

We returned to camp around 6:45 tonight, so that was really a marathon day of over 12 hours, but somehow it seemed to fly by.  During the course of the day we were talking about crowds in the Mara Reserve and that I’d heard how crowded the Mara was but we just weren’t seeing that, other than the leopard this morning.  Ping said that it’s much more crowded where the Fast 5 cheetah coalition is and where Amani and her cubs are now.  I sort of quietly said that I’d love to see both and Ping absorbed that and said “Ok”, which made me wonder if I’d planted a seed.

I took a nice hot shower, remembering that I have limited water this time, and got a lot of dirt and dust off me.  I’ve been sitting in the front with Ping where it doesn’t get as much cover from either sun or dirt but it felt great to be clean again.

While I was writing the blog here in the room earlier, I heard a whole lot of commotion and loud splashing just outside the tent in the river.  Ping said at dinner that it was the hippos leaving the river to start grazing early.  While I was showering, the staff brought me a dawa (vodka, muddled lemon and honey) to my room, which really hit the spot after the day we had.  They also brought banana chips which were great!

Dinner tonight was again at a table set up out in the yard off the common area.  Our appetizer tonight was cream of broccoli soup.  The main was crusted baked fish with hollandaise sauce, potatoes and cauliflower.  Dessert was a nice orange marmalade cake.  

Right in the middle of dinner there were three lions roaring right outside of camp.  Ping said it was probably only 200 meters away.  He said that it sounded like contact calls, just to let the other know where they were, nothing confrontational.  Good to know.

After dinner, Ping said the plan for tomorrow will be the same wake-up and departure times.  Our destination will be another part of the Mara to try to find cheetahs.  He is going to research where Amani and the Fast 5 are, and hopefully we can see them.  Oh please, big cat gods, that would just really top this safari!!