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Oh boy, yet another Masai Mara report? A return to the Mara, February 2019


janzin

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I love the birds in post #45, especially the Purple Grenadiers and the Speckled Mousebird. I don't think I've seen a finer Mousebird photo.

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@janzin Once you are back can you help me to figure out which cheetah mother with three cubs you saw and which one we saw. At the time our guide said the cheetah we saw was called Imani daughter of Amani. I was later told there is no Imani! We saw the cubs last September when they were said to be around 6 weeks old and you say yours were around 5 months old in February! This means either the cubs were older when we saw them or younger when you did. If they were the same cubs and the same mother! I will post a few photographs and maybe someone can compare and answer the mystery. Are there two cheetah mothers with three cubs each? Pen

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Edited by penolva
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On 6/25/2019 at 1:36 AM, janzin said:

 

In this area, far in the distance, we saw some elephants. You may wonder why I've posted no elephants so far. Well...there weren't any! In fact these were the first elephants we'd seen in our three days in the Mara. That was a big change from our time there in September 2016. We would see more in Mara North, but in the Reserve...they just weren't around. 

 

 

 

That's such an interesting observation.  a year (+ one month) before your trip, we saw nearly nothing in the reserve in a one-day trip from Mara North, except for elephants. Plenty of the jumbos but oddly, very few in both Mara North and OMC. just the reverse of your experience. 

 

I"m so pleased you gelled so well with James! and that's high praise indeed. he's just amazing - gave us memorable and incredible sightings shared with almost no other vehicles. I only found out very recently that Fraser and Emily had left as managers but glad you met Roisin and Wifi! 

 

geez those buffaloes look mean. I was relieved the determined mum protected the cubs. and oh boy the cubs are so cute.

you did so much justice to the birds at camp with your excellent photos than I did! 

 

 

that's such boorish behaviour from a so-called photo camp who should know better. I just can't understand why for short-term gains to please photographers, that they would resort to harassing the wildlife. they would only drive the animal into a bush or away from everyone, and all would lose that chance of that sighting. long-term wise, some of the shyer animals will learn  to associate vehicles with harassment and will just avoid us. 

 

Edited by Kitsafari
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@penolva I'm sure that's Amani and the same three cubs...we were in the same area and I didn't hear about any other 3-cub mom cheetah with cubs around that same age. The guides often confuse Imani and Amani (I've seen it spelled both ways, and there was a lion named Imani, I think.) I could be wrong about the ages, I was just estimating five months but it could easily be six months, which would be about the same as you thought...close enough.

Edited by janzin
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3 hours ago, janzin said:

@penolva I'm sure that's Amani and the same three cubs...we were in the same area and I didn't hear about any other 3-cub mom cheetah with cubs around that same age. The guides often confuse Imani and Amani (I've seen it spelled both ways, and there was a lion named Imani, I think.) I could be wrong about the ages, I was just estimating five months but it could easily be six months, which would be about the same as you thought...close enough.

I think we saw the same cubs 😀 have just booked a late extension to our Tsavo trip in September for 5 nights in the Masai Mara. Hopefully we can check out and update on Amani , the 5 Musketeers and Bahati. Sometimes the names do come in handy! Pen 

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Alexander33

Really interesting sequence with the buffaloes and lion cubs. I have to confess I didn’t know they were such a threat to the cubs. Glad everyone came out unscathed. 

 

I’m enjoying your report, and look forward to more. 

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On 6/20/2019 at 8:35 AM, janzin said:

We headed to the area which was the territory of the female Kaboso, and her two daughters. At the time, I didn't know the daughter's names and Ping either didn't know them or didn't volunteer them. (I've since realized he doesn't always get the names right.) But there is a Facebook page called Leopard of the Mara/Mara Leopard Watch, and in the last few months a researcher has been collecting/cataloging leopard images and reconciling them with known names. So I now now that the two daughters are Kidonda and Maridadi. All three of these gals are pretty used to vehicles and not particularly shy.

 

The beautiful Kidonda, daughter of Kaboso.

 

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After a while of watching her pose, we decided to move up along the river a bit to see if we could find Kaboso, the mother. We didn't find Kaboso but we found Kidonda's sister, Maridadi! But only briefly as she went into the bush.

 

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Not a bad start on our first drive!

9

 

I am so happy to hear that my group has been able to help you out with the identification of your leopards! That is what I created it for and I'm so happy you were able to get help from Eve! Your photos are some of my favorites, and I love that you frame and caption them like you do it makes it so easy to figure out what is being photographed. I cannot wait for more. 

 

Edited by Lyss
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Thanks @Lyss good to see you on here, and I love your group, between that and the Big Cats of the Mara group my Facebook feed is filled with beautiful African cats. And you, Eve, and others in the groups have been so helpful in finding out the names of the cats, I even identified one of my "unknown" cats from 2016 as the famous Fig!

 

I hope to have another installment soon, just need to catch up with "real" work first after being away a few days.  And lots more leopards to come (but I think you know the amazing sighting from photos I posted on your page...shhhhhh don't tell! ;)

 

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Our first of four full days at Serian! The plan for the day was a regular morning drive; and then to do a night drive. So we planned to return for lunch. For the night drive, we decided to go with the option of leaving regular time for the afternoon drive but coming back late for dinner. This seemed like the best of the options to us. Taking dinner with us at first sounded fun, but after thinking about it we realized it would mean a lot of lost time right at the nicest part of the evening (around sunset and dusk.) And having dinner before going out seemed too early and while it was certainly presented as an option, we sort of felt like it would mean a lot more work for the staff and we felt a bit guilty. 

 

So we set off to find Amani and the cubs. James had heard they did not have a successful hunt the night before, so of course we hoped we might see some action today.

 

It didn't take long to find them, as they were in the same area we'd left them the night before.

 

Remember, I warned you there would be a lot of cheetahs this trip!

 

Early morning, and the light was still low and soft.

 

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Mom having a stretch.

 

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The cubs were being very playful, so hunting didn't seem to be in the cards. But we had a great time just watching them be cubs!

 

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The light started to improve. Playing continued :)

 

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Amani really wanted to hunt, but the cubs weren't letting her.

 

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A good size comparison!

 

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Cub portraits.

 

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So sweet!

 

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After a little over two hours with this playful gang, we decided to move along and see what else we could find. We had no fear that we wouldn't see them again!

 

 

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James thought we might have some luck with lions if we headed over towards the territory of the Offbeat pride. It was off quite aways to the east, and I don't think we saw much as we headed over.

 

That is, until we came across...more cheetahs!

 

Don't know the names of these two.

 

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They were having quite a time with the flies. Soon we could see why...

 

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It was obvious they had just eaten! And the flies were likely attracted by the scent of blood.

 

They started to move away and we could see they were a pair, male and female. And quite full :) I thought maybe the female was pregnant, but James thought it was just a very full belly.

 

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We left them, as given they'd just eaten they were probably just going to find a shady place to rest. It was already getting quite hot mid-morning.

 

We were now close to the area where James thought the Offbeat pride would be. Soon we came across a couple of vehicles who told us that they'd just left a lioness and cubs with a kill, and gave us directions.  Although you can go off-road in the conservancy, this kill was really deep off-road and it took us a bit to find it. This area was more hilly and it was a bit rough-going but eventually we located them.

 

Unfortunately, they were in a really bad position for viewing, deep in the bush. And there wasn't much, if anything, left of the kill.

 

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This was really the best look we had of the lioness. You can see what remains of a kill--likely buffalo--in the lower left.  What you can't "see" is the horrible stench! The kill was old and the stench and the flies were just awful in the heat.

 

The cubs were buried in the bush too.

 

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We made out at least three cubs, but there might have been more. You can just see a 2nd one camouflaged in the tree above. We waited, hoping the cubs would emerge, but they didn't seem inclined. They were playing in the tree, but it was impossible to get photos, as we were also against the light.

 

Due to the heat, and the smell :unsure: --and the flies!!--we didn't stay with them very long. We started heading back to camp for lunch, but not before stopping for this Long-crested Eagle.

 

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Great to see the cubs so well. She has done well to keep them all so far. Pen

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Beautiful cheetah photos Janet!

 

The "size comparison" photo is great not only for that but you can see the long hairs on the back of the cub's neck still.  Such fantastic cats! 

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1 hour ago, penolva said:

Great to see the cubs so well. She has done well to keep them all so far. Pen

Yes and as far as I know, they are still all doing well...I have seen recent posts on Facebook.

 

 

7 minutes ago, Atdahl said:

Beautiful cheetah photos Janet!

 

The "size comparison" photo is great not only for that but you can see the long hairs on the back of the cub's neck still.  Such fantastic cats! 

Thanks, there will be more :)  It's funny because the cub looks almost the same size as Amani in that photo. They grow fast! At least one cub is male, and I think two, but it was hard to be sure as they were always moving or not, er, showing us.

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During our lunch break, we spent some time talking with Trai Anfield, the photographer-in-residence. Because we liked her so much, we arranged to go out with her on our morning drive two days from now (she was already booked for the following day!) This was also the day that I took most of the in-camp bird photos shown in a previous post.

 

After lunch and a rest and another delicious tea and cake break, we headed out for our extended afternoon-into-night drive.

 

Most of what we saw during the afternoon portion was general game and lots of birds. I might mention here that we found February in the Mara to be much, much birdier than we had found September. I suppose in part it is due to some northern migrants moving in, but it just also seemed more active with residents. I think many were starting to next at this time, in preparation for the rainy season.  James was well attuned to our desire to photograph birds and he was a great spotter.

 

Here are some of the birds from the afternoon drive.

 

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We spent a while with this immature Martial Eagle, as he was really giving us some photogenic poses.

 

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As I mentioned, it was a good afternoon for general game. I love this photo as it has so many species in it!

 

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Also, finally, some elephants! I won't say we say a lot of elephants in Mara North, but certainly more than in the Reserve. Still, many less than we saw two years ago in September.

 

A nice large lone bull!

 

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Very imposing! But he seemed calm.

 

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And a bit later, a small group emerged out of the bush.

 

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For awhile, it looked like a storm was coming.

 

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Looking pretty ominous...but I always love that pre/post storm light.

 

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But amazingly, the storm never materialized--at least not over us.  Now it was getting into the time to look for some nocturnal animals.

 

And it wasn't too long--with still some light--that we found this lovely serval. A much better look than we'd had in the Reserve...especially as this time we were the only vehicle around.

 

The only problem was that the grass was really high! We were standing on the seats to be able to look down at him and get above the grass.

 

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We stayed in this grassy area awhile "hunting" for more serval, as it was really good habitat for them. And we actually found at least two more! But by now it was dark.

 

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James knew we really wanted to see Aardvark, so we headed to another area where he said they are most often found. We searched for a really long time, but sadly with no success.  I believe all we saw that night were hares--at least that's all I've got a photo of.

 

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But there would be more night drives to come :) And we certainly weren't disappointed with this one! Its always a fantastic and special feeling to be out in the bush at night...no matter what you see (or don't see.)

 

 

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1 hour ago, janzin said:

elephant_JZ5_3473a.jpg.9b4a1cd4ec0cb1e8474d9fbaf09f8a5f.jpg

 

Very imposing! But he seemed calm.

 

He doesn't look completely "calm" to me.  :P  Lovely photos as always, three serval is a nice haul. 

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2 hours ago, Zubbie15 said:

 

He doesn't look completely "calm" to me.  :P  Lovely photos as always, three serval is a nice haul. 

 HA yes I see your point

 

Well, he wasn't being aggressive. Maybe he had other things on his mind. :)

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The serval are beautiful, and the long grass shows them in their environment.

You did well to focus on them

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The next day was my birthday--February 18th. Aislie, the camp manager, had asked if we wanted to have a private dinner in our tent. Normally I would have said no thanks, as we like dining with the other guests; but as it happened, a large group of 11 people had just checked in--pretty much taking over the camp. It seemed to be a tour operator who lived in Nairobi with a group of American and French friends and family. They were nice people, and welcoming, but it was the sort of loud  and happy group where one felt like the odd one out. So in this case we said sure, we'll have my birthday dinner in our tent.

 

Anyway, that preamble is just to explain why we opted not to do a night drive this night. But you'll see later why that was a very wise decision.

 

We woke up to a heavy fog. James assured us it would burn off shortly. But in the meantime, the fog made for some fabulous photo opportunities.

 

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Zebras in the fog, one of my favorite photos of the trip.

 

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One animal we'd yet to see in Mara North was leopard. Since it was my birthday, and leopard is my favorite African cat, I asked James to find me one :D

 

The fog had burned off by now, and we drove to an densely wooded area James called the "spider forest."  The reason for this was clear. All throughout, covering the forest floor, on every blade of grass and leaf, were spider webs. It is hard to convey how this looked and I regret I don't seem to have taken more photos of them. I don't like spiders, but they were beautiful, glistening in the sun and covered with dew.

 

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As the sun warmed up the webs seemed to disappear, so you really need to catch this phenomena early in the morning.

 

We drove in and around this forest for a long time. We found our first, and pretty much only, Vervet Monkey. The only other monkeys we'd seen on the trip so far was near the airstrip when we were waiting for our flat tire to be fixed. He seemed to be alone so not sure what was going on there--perhaps he got separated from his troop.

 

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We did find a troop of Baboons. Unfortunately, this didn't bode well for finding a leopard here.

 

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But, this forest was incredible for birds. We could have spent most of the morning here just bird-watching. Well, actually, we did :)

 

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We also saw a number of other great birds, including a Malachite Kingfisher--the only one we saw on the trip. Unfortunately it was too distant for a decent photo of this tiny bird, and I'd gotten such great photos of them in Botswana that I didn't bother.

 

Before we knew it, it was time to head back for lunch. (Even though we had the option for staying out all day, at Serian we just never did so; the camp was just so good for birding during the mid-day break, and we were staying out for night drives on several nights, so we just never took lunch out.)

 

On our way back, we spend some time watching a Secretary Bird hunting.

 

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Not too far from camp, James pointed out this fascinating tree. Well, there's nothing special about this leather leaf tree...but its what is engulfing it that is of interest. It was completely covered in a silk webbing created by ermine moths! We should have gotten out of the car for some close-up photos but I didn't think of it at the time--I kick myself now!

 

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Later, Trai told me that she, Ainslie, and Roisin had spent a long time photographing this amazing phenomena. I have to link to their beautiful photos here, my iphone snapshot really doesn't do it justice.  https://serian.com/a-silk-tree-trai-anfield/

 

Back for another yummy lunch at Serian (did I mention that food was excellent here?) When I arrived back at our tent I found beautiful birthday gift from Serian...a lovely Kenyan Kikoy scarf!

 

Coming up....a very, very special birthday gift for our afternoon sighting.

 

Edited by janzin
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Since we hadn't yet found my birthday leopard, that was our goal for the afternoon. We headed towards a rocky outcrop where James had seen a leopard a few days ago.

 

I couldn't believe my eyes when before we even got close we spotted this up in a tree. A big male, Jasiri...a son of Siri, one of the leopards we had looked for and didn't find in the Reserve. (Again, we didn't know his name at the time, but I found out his ID later from the Leopards of the Mara page.)

 

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We waited awhile, hoping he'd come down. And he did...but did so from the back of this very dense tree, and straight into the bush. We thought we'd lost him, but we drove around to the other side of the outcrop thinking he might come out over there.

 

Sure enough...  But wait! That's NOT the same leopard! This one was much smaller, and a female!

 

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So there were two on this outcrop! James did know this leopardess as Nalangu.

 

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She posed for awhile.

 

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But what happened to Jasiri? Would he join her?

 

Well, yes he would!

 

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WOW, mating leopards!!! Something I didn't dare to hope see!

 

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They were in the tall grass, so as you can see it was hard to get a clear photo. But you certainly could hear them! This "action" went on for a while.  Eventually they moved into a clearer spot for a rest.

 

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And moved again.

 

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Portrait time.

 

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It was almost 7 pm now, and light was getting low. That last photo was at ISO 4000.

 

But they weren't done. And we certainly weren't leaving!

 

We couldn't believe our luck when they came RIGHT OUT IN THE OPEN and directly in front of us...and started mating again!  Light was terrible but who cares :)

 

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Just like lions...they'd stop and then start again. But unlike lions they didn't rest more than a minute or two in between trysts.

 

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Finally, the show was over. They headed back into the bush but not before walking right by our vehicle.

 

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We had spent our entire afternoon drive, start to finish, with these two. The Mara had given me an incredible birthday gift!! I couldn't ask for more!

 

And an update: I just found out that Nalangu gave birth to two cubs about six weeks ago, as of this writing. Could they be from this coupling? The timing is about right!

 

We returned to camp for my candlelit birthday dinner, which was already set up for us on the deck of our tent.  But that wasn't to be without drama too. We were just about halfway through our dinner...when the rains started! And came down fast and furious--a tremendous storm! Everything was blowing, the candles were drowned... We grabbed our plates--and importantly, our wine! and ran for cover into our tent. I felt bad for the poor staff who had to run and try to bring everything inside in the pouring rain.  And then a bit later--still pouring rain--they returned with our dessert, a special chocolate birthday cake.

 

Happy birthday to me :)  I don't think I'll ever be able to best that birthday sighting. Definitely the highlight of the trip.

 

But of course, we still had two more full days...and tomorrow was our morning with Trai Anfield, which we were really looking forward to.

 

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Wow just Wow. What a fabulous birthday present. 

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Incredible sighting and fantastic pictures.

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Wow!  A happy birthday indeed.  What an experience with fantastic photos as well.  It's hard to beat that :).

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What an amazing birthday gift!

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What a brilliant birthday present.

All of the photos are excellent but the portrait of the two of them just after “and moved again “ is really superb.

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1 hour ago, TonyQ said:

What a brilliant birthday present.

All of the photos are excellent but the portrait of the two of them just after “and moved again “ is really superb.

Thanks, I've got that photo as my screen saver! I need to make a print, its my favorite as well.

 

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