During the second week of February I was fortunate to see cheetahs almost everyday. The first few sightings were of a female and her 1-year old male cub. The mama tried hunting on a few occasions however was never successful. During one instance she got pretty close to some gerenuk however missed the chance as some vehicles disturbed the prey. Her cub at the time stayed about 100 metres away waiting anxiously for a hopeful meal.
I was also lucky to see a mother and 3 8-week old cubs. Its been a long time since I have seen such little cheetahs and they were so cute! However I was quite nervous watching these cheetahs as about 300 metres away, 3 lions were sleeping in the bushes. Lions often do kill cheetahs and I hoped the lions would remain asleep for a long time. During this same time, the two male cheetahs that I saw on the day I arrived were also around in Buffalo Springs. One male however was reported to have a bad leg and was seen limping. Overall, it was a great week of cheetah sightings.
On the 12th of February, I got a message from one of the tour-drivers that a cheetah was seen hanging in a tree. I couldn’t understand the message clearly but this was made clear early the next morning when I went out to investigate with a ranger from the reserve. I was shocked to see a dead cheetah hanging in a tree, and it had been almost entirely eaten. Only the head remained and the behind, the legs and middle were eaten completely. It had been dragged up quite high in a tree on Ansel Plains, right next to the elephant corridor. We walked around the area and saw many leopard tracks all along the main road. Lions had also visited the scene and had walked around the tree. No sign of any hyenas though. There were bones and hair under the tree, but no other sign.
I have not yet been able to identify which cheetah this was, but initially thought it was the 1 -year old cub I had seen the previous day with its mother (the tree was about 500 metres from where I had seen her). I got quite confused as after leaving the dead cheetah, I happened to come across another female cheetah with a cub. This cub was much younger however – about 8-10 months old. So this was another mama and cub! Drivers told me that that she used to have 2 cubs and maybe it was one of them that was killed by the leopard. I am still unsure but am on the look out for all the known cheetahs to see which one is missing.
It was sad to see a cheetah this way. I know cheetahs are killed by other predators but it is rare that you actually hear of a leopard that has eaten one. Cheetahs have such a struggle normally. Everything chases them and some kill them and also eat as in this instance. Lions, hyenas, leopards, jackals and even guinea-fowl give cheetahs a hard time (I have seen a whole flock of guinea-fowl chase away two male cheetahs). Unfortunately tourism pressure does not help them much and often cheetahs are stopped from hunting or prey is alerted. Cheetahs definitely need our help and we play a big role in making sure that they are given the space they need to hunt freely.
During this week, I had been going out alone as my assistant Paul had not yet started working. The roads were still in pretty bad shape because of the rains, so I kept my eyes on the road and I probably drove past the lions many times! I was fortunate to see a cheetah hunting impala on one occasion with a striped hyena close by. I also got a see an hour old dik dik. My car was most likely the first car that the dik dik had seen and he bounded towards it, only to be called back by its mother. Although there were no elephants over the first few days, apart from an injured bull elephant, they are now back in their hundreds. But still no lions?!!
On the 25th of January, I drove to “Cat Corridor”; a valley where most of the cats meander through when they are moving from the core of the reserve to the boundary and surrounding community lands. I have seen lion and cheetah often in this area. There is one rocky road that goes between the hills and I took this road after seeing some fresh lion tracks. It is a beautiful part of the reserve, totally isolated and secluded where very few people go to. However the road falls apart and I was about to turn around when I saw and heard the duet of two red and yellow barbets. These birds are one of my favourites and are stunning to watch and listen to. I stopped the car and watched them for a while. As I glanced around the area, I suddenly saw 3 heads watching me. Lions! I was so excited. I turned around quickly and stopped at a good spot where I could see them better. They were on the other side of a ridge and it was not possible to get any closer. There were 3 females and I identified one of them immediately as Uni. She is a big female and one of the older ones. The lions appeared to be a bit nervous and it was apparent that they hadn’t seen a car in a while. They were sleeping near a small clump of bush and even when the sun came out, they stayed there in the sun.
We finally got to Isiolo and built up enough courage for the last part of the journey – the road from Isiolo to Ngare Mara Gate. I drove really slowly trying to avoid the corrugation and huge mud holes. It was not so bad for the first 20 minutes but soon after the road fell apart and it was very very hard going. This was the worst journey I had made on this road (I’ve driven it more than 100 times). It was very hard to even see the mud holes and I was literally driving at 10 kph. Finally – the turn off to Ngare Mara! But the worst was not over. Buffalo Springs and Ngare Mara had experienced torrential rain for 3 days. I had to drive through massive pools of water; I felt like Gypsy was swimming at times.
We got to camp 8 hrs after setting out from Nairobi and I settled into my new tent. It is great to be back! I went out this morning (19th Jan) and for the first few hours, did not see an animal or a car! The bird life was prolific however and there were large ants everywhere. I finally saw some lion tracks and got very excited but was unable to find them. Eventually, on the way back to the camp, I saw a leopard! It was a stunning leopard who was very active. There were 4 other vehicles here and that was it. Normally, there would have been 40 vehicles.