Lions, Leopards and the Lipault Ladies

[graceland]

@@SafariChick,

 

my bridge camera was a Canon 50 powershot, which last safari (Zimbabwe) I was not so happy with..but it was brand new; by this time I was a bit more familiar and have to say I liked it way better than the Canon long lens from MP..however, I had never used anything like that so its just my inability!!

 

Following the cheetah on the hunt was amazing as in previous safaris I usually just saw them lying on a mound.

 

One of my favs from watching this as we drove along

 

 

then zigzaging to the lioness, pregnant - yes it was a cat day!

 

 

 

[Kitsafari]

@@SafariChick - beautiful pix of Malaika and cubs. will it be too much to add a few more? gotta bombard you all with more....although a few of them are blurry as they were constantly in motion!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Kitsafari]

I remember the Double Cross pride. there were two lionesses and a handful of cubs and they were quite far in the bushes. two vehicles were already there when we arrived. as one lioness moved to a bush, one vehicle started shifting to get a better look, forcing the next vehicle to move. the lioness moved again, and the two vehicles shifted and moved even closer. I could see the lioness was agitated and finally she got up and went back where she came from - into the dense bushes. we left at that time, but i think the two vehicles tried to follow the lioness. I'm glad we left. I didn't want to stress the lioness further.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 23, 2015 by Kitsafari

[SafariChick]

Yes, that's right, now I remember @@Kitsafari - I had forgotten those details of that sighting. No, it is not too much to post more photos of Malaika and her cubs! You got some really cute ones (I actually love the blurred cub running), and of the lion cubs too.

 

Leaving the pregnant lioness to rest, we encountered a cheetah again! At first we thought it was Narasha's son again, a likely possibility since we were not that far from where we'd left him, but no, it was Narasha herself! She was hunting for a long time, and actually walking through herds of prey! It was really a strange feeling to just watch her walking through them, and them watching her, either frozen or running away, but she made no attempt on any of them. I guess, like her son, she let them see her too soon. We were with her for a long time, at least 45 minutes from looking at the time stamps on my first and last photos, but she had no luck while we were with her. Here are some photos:

 

 

 

 

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Stand off:

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 23, 2015 by SafariChick

[SafariChick]

@@SafariChick - hey I also have the FZ200 and am trying to learn more of the bells & whistles it has other than just "Intelligent Auto" mode. Am defintiely on a learning curve here.

 

My older camera is a Canon Powershot SX10 IS and so far am not convinced the FZ200 is any better really. Maybe it's just the operator!! haha

 

I started using more than just the Intelligent Auto mode, and sometimes I would take shots of a certain scene in both IA and Aperture Priority, say, and see which I liked better - it is nice to have more options and controls besides IA though sometimes IA is great too. I only have my older Lumix to compare mine to, but this one is definitely better than the old one - the Leica lens is better, I know, for sure.

[pault]

Great stuff. How many cheetah are we at now? I know we are going to get to 16. Enjoyed all your comments and thoughts and photos - esepcially cheetahs walking past the gazelles. Sounds like we are mostly in the reserve on this page.... but is that the case? (I know it is not easy to tell).

 

But while it is great to see so many cheetahs, I have to point out that this whole page is cheetahs and lions. Where are the other animals?

 

@Kitsafari I resisted the urge to requote your thoughts on mating........ good call I think.

[Kitsafari]

hahahaaa, i know. I read it back a few times, and thought what an inane thing to say, but decided to leave it.

 

you should collect my "quotable quotes" and put in a light-hearted catalogue entitled "Say What?" !! we may make money from it @@pault, and fund our safaris with it.

 

BTW, we spotted Narasha and her son in the conservancy. Malaika was in the reserve. we kept asking Dan where we were!

Edited March 23, 2015 by Kitsafari

[pault]

@@Kitsafari.... To be honest my description would be "unintentionally hilarious" rather than "inane". Actually I like to hear people's inane thoughts, since they are sometimes less inane than they think.

 

I am just praying for as much success with cheetahs as you. Great you all kept on asking Dan. I always want to know where the cheetahs have been hanging out.

[TonyQ]

Lots of really enjoyable photos of cheetah. It is amazing see one walk through the prey animals.

Good to see lions again also!

[graceland]

Great stuff. How many cheetah are we at now? I know we are going to get to 16. Enjoyed all your comments and thoughts and photos - esepcially cheetahs walking past the gazelles. Sounds like we are mostly in the reserve on this page.... but is that the case? (I know it is not easy to tell).

 

But while it is great to see so many cheetahs, I have to point out that this whole page is cheetahs and lions. Where are the other animals?

 

@Kitsafari I resisted the urge to requote your thoughts on mating........ good call I think.

 

 

@@pault,

 

For you......looking for the "other animals" @@SafariChick and Dan checking out the plains

 

[graceland]

And of course a I have to add a few of those adorable cubs....who knows when we will be fortunate to see them again.. We were so amazed ourselves to have so many sightings in ONE day! OMC and Mara Reserve were full...

 

Chasing.....

 

 

Leaping

 

 

 

and strolling away...

 

Edited March 23, 2015 by graceland

[SafariChick]

Definitely not done with the cheetahs @@pault - I myself was saying "this place is just crawling with cheetahs!" I was hoping for more leopards in the mix in this part of the trip but, sadly, this was not to be - and to make me even more frustrated, Amy and Shaun told us that the night before we arrived, they had seen mating leopards right near camp - wow!

 

But I do actually have a few other animals from this day and they were just coming up, so you might have been prescient - stay tuned!

[cheetah80]

Finally found some time to go through this most excellent and enthusiastic report - wonderful itinerary and boy did you have so many brilliant sightings!! Your trip definitely delivered! loved the photos, especially of the leopards and Malaika with her cubs. I was chucking at the story of the man walking in the bush!! I was pleased with the feedback about Serian, I'll be in Nkorombo in June - can't wait! Thanks for sharing ladies!

[graceland]

Finally found some time to go through this most excellent and enthusiastic report - wonderful itinerary and boy did you have so many brilliant sightings!! Your trip definitely delivered! loved the photos, especially of the leopards and Malaika with her cubs. I was chucking at the story of the man walking in the bush!! I was pleased with the feedback about Serian, I'll be in Nkorombo in June - can't wait! Thanks for sharing ladies!

@@cheetah80

 

That is exciting to hear - Nkorombo in June. I hope you find the cheetahs, leopards and lions as we . It was much more active than I remembered from prior years with cats. Was so happy Malaika was about every day with her cubs.

 

Make sure you get James or whomever guides you to find the leopards in the gorge....amazing. We all highly recommend James, who has guided other ST members as well!

 

Glad you caught up; love your avatar photo..Where was it taken?

[pault]

Thank you @@graceland. Great shot that makes me feel happy.

[SafariChick]

We followed Narasha for a long time but she never caught anything that we saw. Finally Daniel said we should leave as she didn't seem to want to hunt. Upon leaving her, we did run into a few animals that were not cheetahs or lions @@pault !

 

This fellow (or young lady) was resting on a tree

 

 

Dan said we should try to get a photo of it in flight, and then clapped his hands to get it to fly. I really didn't like this as I think in the wild one should let the wildlife do its own thing and if you happen to see a bird in flight of its own accord, well then by all means try to capture a photo of it. But, so long as it was now flying, I was flustered and figured I'd try to snap a shot.

 

 

then the poor bird flew off somewhere we could no longer see it.

 

Next we came upon this little group:

 

 

 

and a nice gathering of plains game:

 

 

 

We then returned to the area where we'd seen Narasha's son hunting and found him - with a wildebeest kill. Too bad we hadn't stuck with him or we might have actually seen him make the kill.

 

 

 

Looking very full:

 

 

 

We left him to it and moved on and ran into ... you guessed it, yet another cheetah. (this was getting ridiculous). Dan said it was the daughter of another well-known cheetah in the area, Amani. She had a kill she'd eaten part of but hyenas were in the midst of stealing it. I seem to only have photos of the hyena - maybe @@graceland and @@Kitsafari have photos of Amani's daughter - but in any case perhaps you've seen enough cheetah at this point!

 

 

 

and here are a couple of shots of a young wildebeest baby which I don't really remember seeing or taking:

 

 

 

Finally, after this sighting, Dan realized we were all starving as we'd not had breakfast! So he drove for what seemed quite a while to a spot he chose and ... were surprised with a very nice breakfast in the bush where some of the cooks from Mara Plains had come and set up a station to cook omlettes, etc. We were used to carrying breakfast with us in the vehicle at Serian but I think one of us had hinted that they liked to have eggs in the breakfast and this was the very nice result! We sat and enjoyed our breakfasts after a very busy morning.

Edited March 24, 2015 by SafariChick

[madaboutcheetah]

@@SafariChick - love the report ........ Did you try that home made granola they carry in the picnic basket at Mara Plains? I must ask to buy a box of that to bring back home next time.

[Kitsafari]

here are a couple of pix on Armani's daughter. she was trying to stay away from the two hyenas fighting over her kill.

 

 

 

and a shot of the hyena who looked happy scavenging other predator's food

 

 

i was looking through my pix and realise there were a couple of pix of Narasha for a different perspective

 

 

[Kitsafari]

@@SafariChick, that picture of the wildebeest baby was because I felt i didn't have any pix of the babies and asked dan to stop for a photo! so mine's similar to yours.

 

but i love your pics of the tawny eagle and the pack of jackals (4 seated together and a couple more which ran off when we stopped to admire them). They were so relaxed when we stopped close to them - very unusual for jackals! only in the Mara....

 

just to supplement yours:

 

 

 

 

Edited March 24, 2015 by Kitsafari

[SafariChick]

@@SafariChick - love the report ........ Did you try that home made granola they carry in the picnic basket at Mara Plains? I must ask to buy a box of that to bring back home next time.

@@madaboutcheetah no, I don't think we had a picnic basket actually - the first morning we had that breakfast in the bush with cooks, and the second was the day we had to leave - such a short stay - and I am trying to remember but we might have had breakfast at the camp? Anyway, no I don't think I tried any granola.

 

Beautiful shots, @@Kitsafari, thanks for the additions. I like your eagle and jackal photos better than mine.

[pault]

@@Kitsafari.... This time you win the Tawny Eagle take-off shootout (confident ID andf I would guess tawny too, but @@SafariChick seems to have doubts?), although both of you got some good ones. What a great shot that first one is.

 

Thanks for the wildebeest (living and dead) @@SafariChick.

[cheetah80]

 

 

Glad you caught up; love your avatar photo..Where was it taken?

 

 

That avatar photo is 10 years old - I took it at Africat in Namibia.

[Kitsafari]

@@Kitsafari.... This time you win the Tawny Eagle take-off shootout (confident ID andf I would guess tawny too, but @@SafariChick seems to have doubts?), although both of you got some good ones. What a great shot that first one is.

 

Thanks for the wildebeest (living and dead) @@SafariChick.

 

Thanks @@pault. I was getting slightly quicker on the trigger (on the camera of course!).

[graceland]

What a cheetah filled expedition..

 

Of course I have my own visuals on the game, trying out that canon 7D -100-300; need a few more safaris with it for improvement

 

The cheetah kill I was sorry we missed by leaving early

 

 

Full and relaxing in the shade

 

 

Lots of wildies amongst cheetah; we thought it would be a feast for the Cats!

 

 

a juxtaposition of cheetah and wildie

 

 

Frustration -

 

 

 

 

And breakfast in the bush...As @@SafariChick mentioned we drove and drove - by then we kind of know what to expect but it was lovely of Mara Plains to send their chef out to cook over a fire for us that special day....

 

@@madaboutcheetah, yes they had granola, as well as anything one wanted prepared by the chef. I remember an awesome omlet; not sure what the Ladies ordered..

 

I took one pic; by then I had camera fatigue (and frustration ) of my own...

 

Table set on the plain with Dan directing...

 

 

My attempt at capturing a bird in flight - LOL

 

 

My excuse is @@Kitsafari is younger and therefore quicker on the trigger!

 

 

It was quite a morning: excitement, disappointment, frustration, but most of all a celebration of all things Mara!

 

I personally feel there is much more to a safari than capturing the snap; the emotions involved; the driving in the dust, anticipation of what is to come; watching our guide reacting; our own spotting as we gaze over the plains... stopping and breathing it all in, putting the camera and binos down...living in the moment... it is the Mara. People come from all over the world for this experience.

 

Soak it in.... ALL these components together make the safari for me a success. And of course having "safarimates" that do take great shots (and notes ) to seduce those that have not been to GO!

 

That did enable me to be in the moment as I had dreamed when taking this trip. Safarichick and Kitsafari were both terrific and artistic with their photos...I just added a few from my viewpoint. They definitely were the "photojournalists" of the safari!

 

I was the old sage dreamily soaking it in. Sad to leave; wondering if I'd ever return.

 

Then, to top the morning off and have a chance to talk together over what we've experienced , all the while enjoyng a home cooked omlet in the bush!

 

I always like to watch the way a cat can strut....

 

 

 

 

 

[graceland]

 

 

 

Glad you caught up; love your avatar photo..Where was it taken?

 

 

That avatar photo is 10 years old - I took it at Africat in Namibia.

 

 

 

Ok....you'll get a new one in the Mara for sure! LOL