It was not until third last day of our trip with CNP to the Masai Mara in early January that we saw our first Cheetah. The Mara is ideal Cheetah country with vast open spaces for these speedsters to really open up and use the competitive advantage. The next image shows the “dotted plains” with plenty of space for Cheetahs.

“Talent is never enough. With few exceptions the best players are the hardest workers.”

– Magic Johnson

The first afternoon we saw the Cheetah coalition they were on the slopes at the foot of the Oloololo escarpment. As visitors, it seemed unusual that they were working the steep rocky slopes rather than the grasslands. This male was perched on a anthill looking out from his vantage point.

The grass was much longer on these slopes than on the open grasslands of the plains. The change of environment made hunting more tricky and called for greater ambush tactics to catch the Impala and Oribis on the hillside.

We did not see the Cheetah coalition hunt on our first  day.  Two days later this Cheetah coalition were down on the grasslands in conservancy in front of Kitchwa Tembo camp. We first saw them under a Boscia in the open grasslands. The slightly blue tinge in the images is due to the shade. I did not want to colour correct it.

Earlier that day, we missed one of these Cheetahs taking down an Impala but they were quickly surrounded and robbed by the numerous Hyaena resident on the grasslands. The two males were licking the remaining blood off each other’s faces. Having lost their meal they were still hungry.

A closeup of these two males cleaning each other. The co-operation was evident.

Cheetahs have a distinct black “tear mark”, which runs from the inside corner of the eye down to the side of the mouth. These dark “tear marks” reduce glare from the bright sun, improving their already excellent vision. Binocular vision is a very important asset since Cheetahs rely on sight to hunt as opposed to scent, given the distance involved. The retinal fovea of the eye is an elongated shape, giving a sharp, wide-angle view. This aspect of the eye is also adapted for speed. You can imagine how it must sting when you are moving through the grass at 120 kilometres per hour.

The light frame of these Cheetah males emphasis their speed rather than enormous bite power which you find in a Lion or Hyaena. 

Having duly demarcated his territory,  this male had spotted something interesting in the distance which seemed worth investigating.

Everything about the frame of this animals indicates speed.

Look how proportionally big the Cheetah’s chest is to house its out sized lungs and heart. Its waist is the envy of many slimmers. Its legs are also proportionately large for its body. Those back legs are huge compared to their head. Everything about a Cheetah is built for speed.

The Cheetah males were walking along a sand track when they suddenly saw two Impala arms in the distance. Immediately their demeanor changed. They moved into the grass for better camouflage. They would stop and crouch every time the Impala looked up from grazing and would move closer as the Impala lowered its head to graze.

“There are only two options regarding commitment. You’re either IN or you’re OUT. There is no such thing as life in-between.”

– Pat Riley

According to http://bigcatrescue.org/, the Cheetah’s resting heart rate is approximately 120-170 beats per minute, and it’s heart rate after a chase can be between 200 and 250 beats per minute. The Cheetah’s resting breaths vary from 20-30 per minute depending on whether the Cheetah is in direct sunlight or in the shade. After a chase the Cheetah’s breaths per minute can be 150-200.

Once these Cheetahs got to within about thirty metres of the Impala with their heads down in the grass, these dragsters opened their turbos. It is actually really tricky getting good images of the Cheetah running at full speed.

A stride is the measured distance between successive imprints of the same paw. With the added reach given by the spine, one  stride can span 7-8 metres. The Cheetah averages four strides per second compared to the average 2.3 horse strides per second.

The Cheetah’s tail is an effective counter balance and rudder in high speed chases. On this occasion their hunting tactic did not work. The Impala were grazing next to a lugga. This must have been a old excavation left over from road building next to the river. As soon as the Impala saw the Cheetah hurtling towards them they dashed down into the lugga which broke the Cheetah’s speed advantage and they managed to get away unscathed.

“If you have everything under control, you’re not moving fast enough.”

– Mario Andretti

The Cheetah is a very vocal animal. It has the ability to mimic the calls of some birds, using a high pitched chirping sound. According to http://www.cheetah.org, coalition partners are very tolerant of one another’s close proximity, spending over 50% of their time in contact or less than one metre apart. They rarely separate and call continuously for each other when they do.

Having missed the two Impala the Cheetah males decided to move back up to the slopes of the Oloololo escarpment. Perhaps its was too hot in the grasslands with too many Lion and Hyaena to contend with.

The Cheetah were very obliging and walked on a ridge. This provided the perfect perspective and background.

Cheetah are very weary. They would walk for a while and at a suitable vantage point would stop and have a good look around presumably for both prey and predators.

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

– African proverb

Both males were in good condition.

Having found a suitable look out, they both lay down in the sun to have a look around. They were well camouflaged when lying on the ground.

Cheetah’s ears are relatively small suggesting that sight is their primary sense.

When cheetahs display social behaviour, their greeting ceremony is limited to sniffing, face-licking, and cheek-rubbing. They do not body rub like lions.

Cheetahs groom each other mainly after meals when their faces have blood on them or after a rainstorm when their coats are wet. Cheetahs purr most often during grooming.

The Cheetah’s long tail acts as a counterbalance when it has to make sharp twists and turns while chasing its prey.  The tail is vertically elongated to act as a rudder when moving at high speed.

It is quite something to see two wild animals co-operating like this. Another sign of natural intelligence.

In the wild, few cheetahs survive longer than seven or eight years, though they can live to 10 or 12 years. Males tend not to get to old age. Less than 50% survive to old age as a result of fighting over territorial and mating rights. There is generally a higher ratio of adult females to males in wild populations.

The wild Cheetah population, as reported by http://www.Cheetah.org, in 1900 was approximately 100,000 in 44 countries throughout Africa and Asia.  In the last 20 or more years, the population has declined by 30% and the human population has doubled. Today, the total known population is estimated at 7,500 mature breeding individuals and the unknown populations may raise the total to no more than 10,000. Their population numbers were last assessed by the IUCN in 2008.

“Many a trip continues long after the movement in time and space have ceased.”

– John Steinbeck

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its inter-connectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

The Masai Mara National Reserve covers some 1,510 square kilometres in south-west Kenya and is one of Africa’s greatest wildlife reserves. It is the northern-most section of the Mara-Serengeti ecosystem, spanning 25,000 square kilometres across Tanzania and Kenya. It is bounded by the Serengeti National Park to the south, the Siria escarpment to the west, and Masai pastoral ranches to the north, east and west. Together with the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, this reserve forms Africa’s most diverse and most spectacular eco-system.

The reserve  is named in honour of the Maasai people (the ancestral inhabitants of the area). They use the Maasia word “Maa” which means “spotted” to describe the pattern of scattered trees and scrub over vast tracts of savanna, which are often punctuated with cloud shadows.

“Hidden in the glorious wildness like unmined gold.”
― John Muir

The romance of the Mara lies in its ‘big skies’,  vast savanna plains, wildlife spectacles such as the annual wildebeest migration, associations with films like ‘Out of Africa’, an abundance of wildlife as far as the eye can see and the unmistakable roar of hot air balloons rising from the early morning mist on the plains.

One aspect of wildlife photography which CNP’s Lou Coetzer has impressed upon us is that we need to show  depth and versatility in our wildlife photography, so that when we compile a portfolio it shows the photographers skill, versatility and insight. So in that vein, moving away from the “big cats”,  this post shows you some of the wonderful vistas and scenes we immersed ourselves in.

On the afternoon of our arrival at Kitchwa Tembo, we were greeted by this pride of Lions lying very close to the airstrip.

I took the next image a few days later looking north  from the west bank of the Mara river from the” & Beyond” Conservancy quite close to where the Leopard cub was killed by the Lion pride. There was a reasonable flow of water in the river though it was not as strong as I expected after all the rain we had  each night. Needless to say the reptilian terror is ever present.

The light was challenging as, for the most part, it was heavily overcast. Every now and then the sun would break through the cloud cover illuminating the grasslands. Even when the syn was out, the moisture haze complicated the focusing. The next image is of a Lioness wandering  over the grasslands towards the Mara river with her cubs running three steps for her every one. The ubiquitous Topis were in the background.

There are numerous Topis on the grasslands. During daylight hours they are too alert and too fast for the Lions to catch and the adults are too big for the Cheetahs. At night the game changes. Often the Hyaenas catch the Topis asleep in the grass. This was a daylight silhouette of a few Topis. A black control point placed on the foreground helped to emphasis the silhouette.

One of the unique aspects about the Mara is its spotted plains. The Desert Dates and Boscia’s dot the plains. I asked our ranger Douglas why the trees were so scattered and not growing in groves and he told us that the Giraffe and other herbivores destroy almost all of the new saplings. The next image shows the scattered trees at last light looking west towards the Oloololo escarpment.

The “spotted plains” become more apparent in the evening light.

As a potential Cheetah hunt slowly dissipated in front of us, while the sun was setting over the Oloololo Hills, there was a minute to two when this Impala ram stood silhouetted in the fading light.  This is one of those magic moments which photographers love to capture and which, in hindsight, become strong emotional hooks. When I look at this image I am transported back to that moment.

In the Masai Mara Reserve down near the Mara river in the marshy area, where you can easily get stuck in the black cotton clay, we came upon this breeding herd of Elephants.  The adults were very protective around the calves. You can see the haze in the background.

One afternoon, we travelled south in the Masai Mara reserve looking for a new pride of Lions. We found them close to Figtree crossing on the Mara river and this was the scene looking south west from there. There is something very soothing for the soul when you look out over these vast natural places.

In the tree line along the river there is a good chance of seeing Leopard. They are elusive but they are there. This was the Leopardess who had lost her cub to the Lion pride when it was wandering through the trees on the edge of the grasslands.

The vast grass plains are ideal for Cheetah. They operate during the day to reduce conflict with other predators such as Lion and Hyaenas. There is plenty of room for these speedsters to open up and use their advantage to catch their prey. This was one of a coalition of two Cheetah males who were hunting on the conservancy.

Camouflage, vigilance and patience are  vital attributes in the open.

Later in the afternoon of the day we spent with the Cheetah males, for some inexplicable reason, they left the game filled grassland of the conservancy to move to higher ground closer to the Oloololo escarpment. The terrain was more difficult for them to hunt on, though the grass was longer allowing them to stalk closer to their prey. We could only assume there were too many Lions and Hyaenas on the conservancy at that time making it too risky for them to hunt in the open.

When the moisture haze allowed, the sun cast its spell and the light was captivating.

Hopefully I have given you a sense of scenery in which you can immerse your senses. All the images were taken in the Masai Mara Reserve and the adjacent “& Beyond” conservancy in front of the Kitchwa Tembo camp.

 “We need the tonic of wildness…At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable we can never have enough of nature.”
― Henry David Thoreau

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its inter-connectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

This is the fifth post from my trip with CNP to the Masai Mara in early January. The main purpose of the trip was to photographic wildlife and the “big cats” in particular. We were interested in seeing how good the photographic opportunities were outside the Wildebeest migration season. The first four posts were about predators and the “big cats” in particular. I intend posting four more series of photographs and stories from this trip. This post will show some of the birds we saw while following the “big cats”. The next post will show scenery and silhouettes. The second last post of the Mara 2015 trip will show a day in the life of two Cheetah males. The last post will show a variety of images in black and white.

 “Give me the storm and tempest of thought and action, rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith! Banish me from Eden when you will; but first let me eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge!”
― Robert G. Ingersoll

East Africa is a birder’s paradise. The field guide ” Birds of East Africa” documents 1388 birds in the Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi area. Although the tented camp, Kitchwa Tembo , was situated in an indigenous forest but we did not try to photograph the birds in the forest because that was not our focus and the heavily overcast weather substantially reduced the available light in the forest.

The birds we saw but were not able to not photograph were the Black and White Casqued Hornbill feeding on the figs in the camp. There is a wonderful group of some 15 different beautifully coloured Barbets in this region but they eluded us. We saw a flock of Schalow’s Turacos cavorting in the fig tree above our breakfast table. There were lots of Common Bulbuls and White-backed Mousebirds in the camp. As you can hear I am angling toward a bird photography trip next to see the extra-ordinary variety of Shrikes, Weavers, Rollers, Bee-eaters, Sunbirds and Barbets to mention just a few. 

The birds we did photograph were those mainly in the open grasslands which we saw while looking for the “big cats”. There are many different types of herbivores in the open grasslands such as Eland, Zebra, Topi, Buffaloes, Giraffe, Waterbuck, Thompson and Grants Gazelle, Impala and of course, Elephant and Hippo. I did not see any of the Bohor’s Reedbuck this time. Where there are herbivores there are Oxpeckers. Unlike SA, where we mainly see Red-billed Oxpeckers, in the Mara you will find mostly Yellow-billed Oxpeckers. These health workers have plenty of clients to work on.

These two Yellow-billed Oxpeckers were sunning themselves on a large Buffalo’s boss.

Double click on the image with a blue border and you will be taken to the Xeno Canto website. Click on the right pointing triangle at the top left hand side of the list and you will hear that bird’s call. Hit the back arrow key on your browser to return to this post. 

One bird you will commonly see in the Mara is the Grey-crowned Crane. We never saw them in flocks, only in pairs which were widely scattered. They forage in the grasslands for insects and grass seeds. I never fail to marvel at the exquisite beauty of these birds. 

“Cranes are ubiquitous in the earliest legends of the world’s peoples, where they often figure as sentinels of heaven and omens of longevity and good fortune.”

That Golden Crest of specialised feathers is something exquisite!! Mother nature has an ability to put colours and textures together which work, and must be the envy of any fashion designer.

Grey-crowned Cranes are quite vocal with there distinctive croaking call. 

Black-headed Heron were ubiquitous in the Mara. There were many places in grasslands which had filled with rainwater. These provided the Herons with plenty of food from frogs to Terrapins. Once they see their prey, they can stand motionless for a long while watching and waiting for the prey to move closer. They then start to weave their head left and right in what looks like a hunting ritual.   The weaving of the head  from side to side to thought be assist the Heron more accurately estimate the position of the prey in the water, enabling it to compensate for refraction in the water. The Heron then uses its bill to spear its prey.

While we were looking around the marsh area in the Masai Mara reserve down near the Mara river, we came across two Lapwings which I had never seen before. The first was this Senegal Lapwing which never stopped for us to get a decent image of it. There was a small group of five or six.

The second new Lapwing, for me, was the Spur-winged Lapwing. This character was much more accommodating mainly because it was looking for insects in the old Elephant dung in the middle of the road.

This Spur-winged Lapwing paraded around in front of us for about five minutes.

“It is the soul that sees; the outward eyes
Present the object, but the Mind descries.
We see nothing till we truly understand it.”
― John Constable

While we were watching the Cheetah males, a pair of Temmnick’s Coursers ran in front of us. You don’t often seen them. I have only ever seen them before in Mashatu, Botswana. They were very busy scurrying around looking for insects in the grass.

The heavy duty clean up crew were coming in. This Lappet-faced Vulture banked sharply for a grand entrance to partake in cleaning up the remains of a Hippo calf.

The air space was getting busy as more Vultures arrived. A pair of Hooded Vultures coming in on finals.

The Hooded Vulture are much smaller than either the White-headed or the massive Lappet-faced Vulture. The Hooded Vulture tends to lurk around the periphery of a kill skirmishing for scraps rather than competing on the main carcass.

We only saw three Vultures close up and that was on the first day. The Hooded, White-headed and Lappet-faced Vultures flew in to pick at the remains of a Hippo calf close to the airstrip. It is only when you see them together do you get a real sense of relative size and their hierarchy at a kill. I was surprised how big the White-headed Vulture was which in turn was much bigger than a Hooded Vulture. The White-headed and Lappet-faced Vultures tucked into the remains while the Hooded Vulture remained on the fringes of the carcass.

“The concept of conservation is a far truer sign of civilisation than that spoilation of a continent which we once confused with progress.”

 – Peter Matthiessen

The open grasslands are paradise for the Larks, the most common of which are the Rufous-naped and Flappet Larks. The Rufous-naped Larks are ubiquitous and the males seem to love having their photograph taken. In the open grassland they either sit on top of a small bush or anthill and advertise their availability and prowness.

This Rufous-naped Lark must have been a male as he was displaying to all the passing females. We were also giving this casanova the attention he was seeking.

There is a wonderful variety of Hornbills in East Africa. We found the Southern Ground-hornbill in the Mara but the Abyssinian Ground-hornbill can be found in Uganda and north western Kenya. This solitary Southern Ground-hornbill was feeding on insects it was uncovering from old Elephant dung. The Abyssinian Ground-hornbill has a blue rather than red skin around its eye and throat.

The haze reduced the contrast allowing us to achieve reasonable detail in the dark tones. This Southern Ground-hornbill had a very successful feeding session thanks to the Elephants.

Another bird seen regularly foraging on the open grasslands is the Secretary Bird. It strides out across the grasslands looking for insects, rodents, frogs and small birds. These raptors are not big tasters. They grab their prey usually with their feet, stomp it into submission and swallow it whole, often still alive. The distance they can cover while striding can be quite remarkable.

Those long scaly legs protect them from snake bites. Their feet are clawed and have thick hard pads underneath. They use their feet to stomp on prey, often pounding it to death.

This is a small selection of the huge variety of avians which can be seen in the Mara. This reserve is a real Eden of wildlife.

“Soon the child’s eye is clouded over by ideas and opinions, preconceptions and abstractions. Simple free being becomes encrusted with the burdensome armour of the ego. Not until years later does an instinct come that a vital sense of mystery has been withdrawn. The sun glints through the pines, and the heart is pierced in a moment of beauty and strange pain, like a memory of paradise. After that day….we become seekers.”

 – Peter Matthiessen

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its inter-connectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike