An unlikely trio

Masai Mara, Kenya

Day 3

Before sunrise in the Masai Mara

Sunrise in the Masai Mara

There was a gorgeous sunrise this morning and we watch a number of hot air balloons take to the sky. The sun rises around an orange glow. We watch some zebras fight. Not as brutal as the wild horses but they do bite each other. Two jackals have a kill and keep watch nervously as they eat just in case someone comes to steal their find. A Maribou Stork stands close by waiting patiently until they have finished - he's not a vulture but is still part of the clean up crew.

What did I do to you?

The pride is lazing about as usual

In the long tall grass we come across a pride of eight lions but you can only see seven. When they lie down flat, they are well camouflaged. There is a reason they are the colour of dry grass as they frequent the savannah plains and you could quite easily be a couple of metres from a lion and not know it. The grass is very long this year. A woman has taken over the running of the National Park and she has forbidden the Masai to graze their cattle within the park at night. As well as that the Wildebeest haven't arrived yet to mow down the grass, there are some here but there should be thousands.

Hippos big and small

A jackal - do you mind, I'm eating here

Lilac-breasted Roller

Vervet Monkey

We have swapped seats this afternoon and Conny has come with me and Lindsay has gone with Dirk, and we have heard that there has been a sighting of a Leopold but that doesn't mean you will get to see it. On our way there we come across a bizarre situation. There are two lionesses sitting near a solo Cape buffalo. He isn't moving so we don't know if he's injured. Three giraffes look on in disbelief as do some Zebra. A hyena lurks in the background hoping he can steal their kill. Two lioness cannot take on an animal this size and we aren't sure if they are waiting for backup. They look pretty sleepy, so we go to find the Leopold. Dirk and Lindsay are there but haven't spotted it yet, so we figure if they do see it, hopefully they will get some good shots, and we go back to the trio. Quite some time later back up comes, but they aren't lions, it's a herd of  Cape buffalo who stop at the top of the next hill. One comes forward; he must be their leader. He comes up to the one sitting down who now gets up knowing that help is at hand if the lions try anything. I think they are starting to fight but they are greeting each other by rubbing faces together and the one who had been sitting down walks back to the herd. The tough one wants to teach the lions a lesson so he chases them off and they run behind the cars that have gathered and sit down again. Better not to exert too much energy, we might need it later...

I think the buffalo is too scared to stand up

What is going on here?

Until his mate comes and runs the lions off

The hyena is a bit annoyed that the lions didn't get the buffalo 

Baby baboon

Day 4 

Sunrise with cloud

Stretching time

The find for today was one of Koboso's older cubs. When we arrived we couldn't see her to had to go hunting in this large area of bushes. Then we spotted her. We got a couple of seconds and she was back in the scrub. We found her again, but just for a second and she was off again. Then someone thought they saw the ranger's vehicle so we all scrambled as we weren't supposed to be there. We had no idea if she had moved on while we were gone so we waited a for about ten minutes and then gave up, she could be anywhere. This was all before 9am in the morning.

One of Koboso's cubs

Their coat is camouflaged for bushes, but they are still hard to see in the long grass

Around 9:30am we stop for morning tea and today we were joined by two other cars from camp which gives us a chance to chat about the morning.

Elephants pass us in the distance while we sip tea

One of the other guests had seen a black rhino the day before so we made it our mission this afternoon to go and find him. He was a long way away and had last been seen heading for a forest so there was no guarantee that we would find him but we wanted to try anyway, so the four of us set out on a quest.

Food must have been hard to come by today as we saw two lionesses run after some ducks. They didn't catch them of course but it was amusing to watch.


A hyena sits on top of a dead hippo before he gets stuck into his dinner

and he's all mine

Black Rhino

Yes, we find the hippo, but it's 6:15pm and we have to be back in camp by 6:30pm. He's out in the open and there is still enough light for us to take some photos before he's had enough of us and trots off. We are all ecstatic. Brian is not happy that we are late back to camp, but it was worth it.

31 August & 1 September 2018

Day 1 & 2: The rains of Africa
Day 5 & 6: Lion's prize
Day 7 & 8: Very special lion day
Day 9 & 10: not published yet