Furaha in Ruaha (and Selous) Aug/Sept 2013

[stokeygirl]

At one stage, Grumpy got up at the sound of another lion calling, and walked across the riverbed to drink. He then sat on the bank watched by nervous impalas.

[stokeygirl]

We left him and headed in the direction of the calls to find Brother heading our way, calling to Grumpy. We enjoyed a nice sighting of him walking in the morning light, although Grumpy wasn’t responding so eventually Brother gave up looking and lay down so we left him.

 

[stokeygirl]

Some photos from the rest of the morning-

 

 

This giraffe had just been testing the urine of the female-

 

[stokeygirl]

The afternoon was quiet, driving up into a rocky area, ideal leopard habitat where they often saw leopards but our luck wasn’t with us.

 

The next morning was interesting with a serval just outside camp. This female has been seen a lot and her territory being close to camp she seemed relatively relaxed (for a serval).

 

[stokeygirl]

We then found a couple of hyena.

 

Obligatory lilac breasted roller.

 

[stokeygirl]

A few lions by the Ruaha river seemed to be being ignored by a couple of bull elephants feeding nearby.

 

[stokeygirl]

We spent some time by the river just watching the wildlife around one fallen acacia tree lying in the water- king fishers, bee eaters, a Nile monitor, terrapins.

 

[stokeygirl]

We then came across a pair of lions on the other side of the river, who we watched for a while hoping they’d mate but they were probably early on in the process and not up to the every 15 mins regularity. Festo told us this male was one of a coalition of 3 who were the dominant males of the fearsome Bushbuck pride. This pride has very powerful lionesses, easily capable of taking down buffalo and giraffe but recently graduating to small elephants.

 

[stokeygirl]

 

It was a bit of a birding day with tawny eagles and an eastern chanting Goshawk on the way home.

[stokeygirl]

[stokeygirl]

In the afternoon I finally got my crack at an actual photo of a lesser kudu, just outside camp. Whilst I’d seen a few on my last visit, they’d all run away too quickly.

 

[stokeygirl]

It was a quiet afternoon. Even Grumpy’s pride wasn’t to be found- Festo thought the lionesses had killed something back in the bush where we couldn’t access, as there were many lion tracks heading that way, back down to the water, then back to the bush again.

We found 3 young lions in the riverbed not doing much but it was special as I found out these were the 3 cubs I’d spent so much time with the previous year.

 

 

 

Here are a couple of photos of these guys from June 2012-

 

[stokeygirl]

The next morning we went for a walk with Pietro. It was a good walk, covering a fair amount of ground and we saw plenty of game- giraffe, zebra, impala, kudu and elephants.

[madaboutcheetah]

SG,

WOW - sounds a super safari!!!! Thanks for the report - and I now have Ruaha in my plans (one day!!!) .......

[stokeygirl]

@madaboutcheetah - The more I see of Ruaha, the more highly I rate it, and for me it's seriously rivalling South Luangwa as my favourite park. For me it could just do with a bit more on offer on the walking side, and Kichaka Expeditions is definitely going to do a lot to improve those options.

 

For cheetah, I think it's a pretty good option although it's never going to rival the Mara or the Serengeti. On this trip, this was our only cheetah sighting (although it was a humdinger!) in 7 days. I would have expected to see more as on my June trip, in 8 days, we had 3 sightings, each of a single cheetah, two being the same one. But in June the grass is a bit longer and cheetah harder to spot. In Aug 2010 we had two sightings (one single cheetah, one mother with two older cubs) in four days. On this trip, there had been some controlled burning in an area known as the "small Serengeti", which is usually a reliable area for cheetah but the burning had caused the usual prey animals to move away, and the cheetah to follow, so I think the cheetah had moved into areas where they were harder to find. So I think this year, cheetah sightings were a bit down.

 

Still, the one cheetah we did see definitely made up for the lack of any others!!

[madaboutcheetah]

Super!!! I would do Ruaha for the park itself - won't be obsessed - cheetah would be a bonus!!!

[AKR1]

Well done @@stokeygirl capturing that series. Matt

+1. Great action shots!

[TonyQ]

Brilliant photos - the action sequences are great.

Excellent picture of the serval as well.

Ruaha looks superb - can't wait to read about Selous

[stokeygirl]

By the afternoon Grumpy’s family was back in the riverbed, this time just with Brother, and they were looking well fed.

 

[stokeygirl]

In the morning we spent some more time with them, as this was when the cubs were at their most entertaining. That morning even the females were particularly playful.

 

[stokeygirl]

We also spent quite a bit of time watching baboons.

 

[stokeygirl]

Then we found Grumpy quite a long way along the river, with a female. This was the mother of the 3 cubs I’d seen last year who were now 22 months old. It seemed too early for her to be mating again but we watched them for a while just in case. She seemed disinterested and got up at one point to start trying to dig for water. Not now dear I’m thirsty. She didn’t seem to have much success with the water- it was hard to tell but I think she found a bit.

 

[stokeygirl]

She then climbed out of the riverbed towards us and walked off. So we went around and saw her, then Grumpy following, walking towards us.

 

 

[stokeygirl]

At that point she had gone to one side of the vehicle and Grumpy to the other. A herd of elephants were approaching, on a collision course with Grumpy. Now he was going to meet his match. He looked a bit scared.

 

[stokeygirl]

The elephants trumpeted and charged at him and he turned tail and ran.

 

At this point, Festo said- look she’s going to go for this baboon, and I turned my attention to the other side of the vehicle, where a baboon was approaching. It was alone and seemed sick, limping and a bit wobbly it was hard to tell what was wrong with it but the lioness sprung at it and chased it. She nearly caught it and surely easily could have but she seemed not to want to catch it, or perhaps it was because it was running towards our vehicle. It was odd behaviour, and we later heard that the other vehicle had seen the baboon actually launch itself at the lioness, cling to her face and jump back. It seemed a sick and crazy animal.