Lewa Downs

Onto Lewa Downs by car from Meru; an interesting drive with a much better understanding of rural Africa!  Lewa has already had good rains, it was lovely and green with lots of wildlife.  With the rain comes our 'African spring' with birds courting each other and nest building.  The male Lilac breasted roller brought a gift of a grasshopper to his mate before they settled on the top of their favourite perch above their nest hole.

There were many elephant on Lewa with Mount Kenya in the background it was a beautiful sight to see!

This young female showed us how big she is to stop us from getting closer to her!

The two young cubs who were orphaned last October have been hunting for themselves despite being too young to be very experience in hunting.  So far they have been successful, earning our respect and admiration.

We found a white rhino with her calf down by the river drinking among herds of zebra, elephant, waterbuck and warthog.

Meru, great to return!

Meru was looking stunning before the rains, still dry but in great shape!  Showers had put down the dust a little before we flew into the Park and on our first evening we were delighted to see a male cheetah.  He was totally unconcerned by us, walking around and marking his territory.

The next morning we set out early to find a very large herd of buffalo.  As they smelt us they stampeded putting up dust and cattle egrets.

In the cool of the Rogerewo Rriver a pod of Hippo watched us keeping a wary eye on the human visitors.

Our camp was up in the shade of some tall 'yellow fever' trees where we were surrounded by troops of baboon, more buffalo and elephant.  It is always great to return to Meru National Park!

In our special concession at Amboseli

Well I have become lax and this safari is long over but here is the final stage in Amboseli for the blog. October is the end of the dry season and the lake-bed was as dry as it can get with the hot sun and winds creating dust devils and the occasional dust storm. I guess that it was a good lesson for us to experience some of the extremes that Africa can go through and show us how the wildlife and people are at the mercy of the climate. It seemed as if the area was holding its breath for the onset of the November rains, elephant herds crossing the lake-bed to get to the shrunken swamp for life giving water and then trekking back across to get to the brush and trees for food. A commute which governed the lives of not only the elephant but also the giraffe, zebra, wildebeest and even humans and their cattle. As the dry season deepens the food gets farther away from the water as it is eaten, causing this daily ebb and flow of animals.
The maasai are a stoic people when it comes to the seasons, facing destitution and starvation during heavy drought years with a simple 'Shauri ya Mungu' : 'It is the will of God' . I suppose it is because this is something they believe they cannot change and so they just get on with their lives. This year actually is a normal one and the grass so much better than last year which saw the end of a tragic three year drought which decimated their cattle herds and also much of the wildlife.
The final day of our safari saw the usual visit to the one of the local maasai ingang (village), in this case we went to David Kraini's ingang and did some shopping in the market and visited with his mother at her hut. These two little girls were excited by the us foreign visitors but also a little shy! In the evening we had sundowners and a dance at the top of Nado Soit, the hill behind camp and we were lucky to have the peak of Kilimanjaro come out from behind her shroud of clouds creating a magically beautiful end to the day and the final evening of our safari.

From the Mara to Ol Donyo Waus

We finally left the Mara for Ol Donyo Waus in the Chyulu Hills where we stayed whilst my camp crew packed up the several tons of tents and equipment for the move to Amboseli.

The flight took us right over the Great Rift Valley which winds down Eastern Africa from Ethiopia to Botswana and split Madagascar from the mainland millions of years ago. Eventually in millions more there will be other islands off the eastern shore of Africa as the rifting process continues but for now we are blessed with the spectacular volcanic mountains, escarpments and lakes which characterizes this wonderful geology. One such lake is called Magadi which is a masai word meaning salts or soda and our flight took us right over this extraordinary lake. From the air the lake resembles more an alien landscape than anything found on earth as the salts form a hard red crust on the water and float into honeycomb patterns.

Ol Donyo Waus was as picturesque as ever and we were blessed with beautiful scenery and wildlife. I love the contrast of the golden grasses on the plains with the rounded volcanoes of the Chyulu range in the background. These three pictures may capture some of the essence of this beautiful area.

In the morning some of our party took the horses out while others went out on the mountain bikes with the Massai guides and still others went walking. We all met for a picnic breakfast in the shade of a flat topped acacia on the edge of the sweeping plains.

This time of year sees the arrival of oryx calves, helping to renew the population which had been hit hard by the terrible drought of the previous three years. Rival orxy bucks are disputing territory and mating rights, this pair disturbed one of the bull elephants who had been snoozing in the shade of an acacia!

From my room there were wonderful views over the waterhole and the plains to Mt. Kilimanjaro. There was also great micro wildlife viewing, Emerald spotted wood doves coming to drink at my plunge pool and Agama lizards sunning themselves on the wall. Always something to catch the eye and attention!

six days in the Mara

They say that one picture is worth a thousand words? Here are a few thousand words to describe our six days in the Mara......

Its not just the Mara River which has crossings!

Patience is a virtue.

Two spotted hyena cubs, curious about us.

The rains brought out some beautiful fireball lilies. (Scadoxus multiflorus)

Good looking king.

These guys were having such a fine time in the mud.

Maasai Mara in October

Now settled into camp in the Maasai Mara and we have six days to explore this bountiful, game filled sanctuary.  The migration animals are still here in huge numbers and there has been rain in the month since I was last here, bringing a green flush to the rolling plains and wonderful cloudscapes overhead. Our first day started well when we went to find the lions which had been serenading us all night with their grunting roars.  Two young males fast asleep just about a quarter of a mile from camp.  We were tempted to arouse them out of their stupor and gain a modicum of revenge for a noisy night but held back, this is their world after all and we the visitors.  

From these two comatose felines we went on to three very much awake male cheetah who were feasting on a young wildebeest they had killed.  These boys are quite famous in this part of the Mara and often take on fairly large prey.  We watched them finish off their meal and then head out looking for a shady spot to lie down in and rest.  

 Meanwhile Amanda had been out in her car and found a pride of three lioness and their three offspring and we enjoyed watching the cub playing with an old flip flop which he had found somewhere (hopefully the owner had not been found at the same time!).  That evening we went to visit the pride again, just a couple of minutes from camp and we were just in time to witness the youngest lioness hunt down a wildebeest yards in front of us.  

 A lunge out of cover, dust and panicky hoofs, chasing in front one way and then the other before she pulled down an old male in a flurry of hoofs and dust.  As the dust settled and she suffocated him with a firm grip on his windpipe, the surviving wildebeest looked on behind her from a safe distance.  She then then dragged her kill into cover before going off to fetch the other pride members and we watched as they tucked into a well earned meal. The sated lions then played and groomed each other as the day wound down to night.  A wonderful first day in the Mara!

 

A brief but productive visit to Lake Nakuru National Park

The female leopard we encountered on the track.

In order to get some photographs of the flamingos at Lake Nakuru we arranged for our charter flight to stop there while we went for a four hour game drive and picnic.  We had seen a leopard cub and his mother at Lewa Downs but the light had been fading and the animals were at a distance from the car.  So we were sent over the moon when at 11.30 in the morning in Nakuru a lovely female leopard came walking down the track straight past our car! 

We were able to get some fantastic photos and film of her as she went about her business, marking, sniffing and generally patrolling her territory and seemingly oblivious of our presence. As you can imagine, that was a boon and a great start to our game drive in Nakuru. There has been so much rain here in the Rift Valley that the water level of L. Nakuru is the highest that I’ve ever seen it.  As a result the salinity of the water has been diluted causing the algae to recede, in turn sending much of the flamingo to migrate elsewhere in search of food.  However there were still several hundred thousand scattered along the shoreline and we were more than happy with that!  All in all, our brief visit to Nakuru park turned out to be a great success.