I was among a small group of photographers who spent four days in Samara in May this year with CNP Safaris following and photographing a unique cheetah family.

“The secrets of nature are quietly revealed. Not the way we humans do it with noise and drama. Nature’s uniqueness, extraordinary skills and endurance are revealed quietly to those who take the time to look and appreciate. The truth lies in plain sight for those who care to look.” ~ Mike Haworth

Samara is a private game reserve, 67 000 hectares in area, located about 25 kilometres east, towards the coast, from Graaff-Reinet in the Eastern Cape. The reserve’s lodges are positioned at the foot of the Camdeboo escarpment. The game reserve straddles the the Camdeboo plateau, its escarpment and the beginning of the Great Karoo.

In 2003, three rehabilitated cheetahs were introduced into Samara. These were the first cheetahs in the area for around 132 years. There were two males named Mozart and Beethoven and a female, Sibella. The female came from a Cheetah Rehabilitation Center where she recovered after having been badly mauled by a man and his dogs. Once in Samara, Sibella raised 19 cubs to adulthood but sadly died in September 2015 after being wounded while hunting a duiker.

Today, Samara is well-known for its cheetah conservation efforts and Sibella is one of the most famous cheetahs in southern African conservation history. She contributed to just over 14% of the current South Africa’s cheetah meta-population. Her genes are present in 17 cheetah meta-populations around the country.  

Chilli, a daughter from Sibella’s last litter, was raising eight cubs on her own. The cubs are not all her own as three of them were from her daughter Inara. These two female cheetahs, Chilli and Inara were recorded meeting in 2020 when Chilli was eight years old and Inara three years old. Each was accompanied by her own litter of young cubs, born one month apart. After a short period of unease, both mothers settled and the cubs played together. When they eventually moved off in opposite directions, two of Chilli’s cubs, aged three months old, went off with Inara and her four youngsters aged four months old, instead of their own mother. Over the course of a few days, the Samara team witnessed these two cubs suckling from and being groomed by Inara. The mothers met up again a short while later, and once more swapped cubs and suckled cubs other than their own. The mothers continued to interchange their litters for some time until one day Chilli moved into new territory, taking all the cubs with her.

These two female cheetahs, both with cubs, exhibited what is known as “allo-mothering,” which is when young are cared for by individuals other than their biological mother. While this phenomenon has been witnessed in elephant herds, lion prides and several bird species, until now it had not been witnessed among cheetah. Female cheetahs are usually solitary except when rearing their own cubs.

Inara, left alone, eventually mated again and gave birth to two cubs which she has subsequently raised by herself.

“I arise today
Through the strength of heaven:
Light of sun,
Radiance of moon,
Splendour of fire.
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of wind,
Depth of sea,
Stability of earth,
Firmness of rock.” ~ Saint Patrick

The terrain at the foot of the Camdeboo escarpment is rugged, and very stony in places with lots of acacia thorn trees. I am amazed that these cheetahs can operate so well in difficult conditions under foot. Chilli on her own is a formidable hunter. She needs to be to feed such a large family. As the cubs have grown they have increasing joined in the hunt. This cheetah family now hunts everything from adult female kudu to young eland, springbok and sometimes young warthog.

“Land really is the best art”. ~Andy Warhol

There is a healthy population of kudu and eland in the reserve and for now the lions, which were reintroduced into Samara in early 2019, seem to prefer the Camdeboo plateau. One lionesses has ventured down onto the plains at the foot of the Cambedoo escarpment with dramatic effects on the aardvark population. No doubt the lions will affect the cheetah family dynamics in the months and years ahead.

“One of the things I love about my wanderings in the bush is that every time I think I am beginning to sense the interconnections, I am reminded that the the depth and complexity of nature’s interactions are far wider than my imagination and I am left in a state of wonder.” ~ Mike Haworth

Chilli is hunting every day for her tribe. A young kudu is just enough. Feeding time seems to be a tense affair which makes these cheetah sub-adults skittish. They often give each other a fright when reacting to an unknown sound from the surrounding bush.

It is exceptional to see a female cheetah successfully bringing up a family of eight cubs. Samara gives visitors the opportunity to get off the vehicle and walk with the cheetahs. It is an amazing experience to be able to sit quietly in the bush watching the cheetahs playing and cleaning the blood off each others faces after a meal. The rangers insist on visitors keeping a respectful distance from the cheetahs but sometimes the youngsters walk straight past you a metre to two away. We say we walk with cheetahs but mostly we follow!

“True inspiration comes from within. It is an intuitive recognition. It is a voice deep inside. Learn to listen to it. You have the wisdom within. It comes from incarnations of learning”~ Mike Haworth

One the reasons for going to Samara for a second time in just over a a year was that the sub-adults were due to be relocated to different reserves around South Africa to expand their metapopulations. This visit gave us an opportunity to see and experience this unique natural wonder of eight sub-adult cheetahs and their mother for which we were all extremely grateful.

“Wilderness of not a place. It is a way of life. Conservation of nature is the conservation of a sacred attitude to our world.” ~Alan McSmith

In the mornings and evenings the light can change dramatically with shafts of light illuminating corridors of thorn veld while putting the mountains in to deep shadow. The changing colour and intensity of the light in this part of the world adds so much interest to our photography.

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

Have fun, Mike

Lou Coetzer of CNP Safaris invited us to see and photograph an unusual wildlife experience in Samara in May this year. Samara is private game reserve about 25 kilometres south east of Graaff-Reinet in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is 67 0000 hectares in area and was formed by the acquisition of surrounding farms, with the initial farm being Monkey Valley. The owners of Samara wanted to acquire enough land to create a self-sustaining ecosystem that could carry wildlife in the fragile Great Karoo environment.

“Cherish sunsets, wild creatures, and wild places. Have a love affair with the wonder and beauty of the earth! “~ Stewart Udall

This was the second time I have been to Samara. The first visit revealed rhino, cheetah, aardvark, giraffe, black wildebeest, ground squirrels and blue cranes set in vast magnificent landscapes. So I had an idea of what to expect from a wildlife and landscape perspective. This visit was primarily to see a cheetah mother called Chilli and her eight adolescents. Being adolescents, they were close to being forced to strike out on their own. Samara’s raison d’être is conservation so most of the adolescent cheetahs were destined for new homes in other reserves which wanted cheetahs. This meant there was limited time to experience a cheetah mother operating in the wild with her eight adolescents.

Eight cheetah adolescents is highly unusual. Cheetah mothers produce between one and six cubs after a gestation period of around 93 days. It is unusual to find more than four cubs. According to the Cheetah Conservation Fund, there are three stages in the life cycle of the cheetah: cub (birth to 18 months), adolescence (18 to 24 months) and adult life (24 months to on average 12 years).

“Here is your country. Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children’s children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance.” ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Samara is vast and the landscape is rugged. To be able to find Chilli and her family, the rangers used telemetry. Chilli had a VHF telemetry collar. This system is directional and the intensity of the beeps give some idea of distance. Down on the plains of the Great Karoo there are areas of thick bush as you can see from the next image. This Shepherd tree in the foreground overlooked one of the main areas in which the cheetahs were operating

On our first day of this trip we found many herbivores, the largest of which were the South African Giraffe, a subspecies of the Southern Giraffe. At present, the South African Giraffe population is estimated at 29,650 individuals, showing a marked increase over the past three decades. An assessment of the South African Giraffe for the IUCN Red List is ongoing, but with the large increase it will most likely result in a listing of Least Concern.

We found a family herd of nine adult giraffe. Unlike eland they do not run away as soon as they see you. In fact they can be quite curious and will stand to look intently at you. It is only when you get to within that “fight or flight” distance do they walk or run off.

“The more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success, his influence, his power for good. Calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom.” ~ James Allen

On our first afternoon, there were clouds to the west which cast deep shadows on the relief of the Camdeboo escarpment emphasising the ruggedness and creating different moods.

Judging from the amount of hair on top of their ossicones, most of the herd seemed to be females. The males had worn most of the hair off their ossicones while sparring and fighting each other. The males also have a distinct penal bump at the lower part of their belly.

Lions were first introduced into Samara in early 2019. They were the first free-roaming lions in the area for 180 years. One of the ways to find a predator is to look in the direction that a giraffe is steadfastly staring. The lion do not have a pride large enough to take down giraffe in Samara and the lions have remained mostly on the Camdeboo plateau where there is plenty of food, most notably black wildebeest.

“We enter solitude, in which also we lose loneliness. True solitude is found in the wild places, where one is without human obligation. One’s inner voices become audible. One feels the attraction of one’s most intimate sources. In consequence, one responds more clearly to other lives. The more coherent one becomes within oneself as a creature, the more fully one enters into the communion of all creatures.” ~ Wendell Berry

At dusk on our first afternoon we found Chilli and her family. With a family of eight adolescents and herself, she needed to hunt every day. Chilli hunted everything from springbok to young eland and kudu.

The introduction of lion into Samara will inevitably change the cheetah dynamics. For now the lions seem to prefer the plains on the plateau and the cheetah the lower plains at the foot of the Camdeboo escarpment. Once the lions increasingly occupy the lower plain they will inevitably start killing the cheetah cubs so the chances of ever seeing another eight member adolescent cheetah family will be very low in future years.

“Conservation is sometimes perceived as stopping everything cold, as holding whooping cranes in higher esteem than people. It is up to science to spread the understanding that the choice is not between wild places or people, it is between a rich or an impoverished existence for Man.” ~ Thomas Lovejoy

Twenty-four years ago Sarah Thompson and her husband bought the first farm which would form the nucleus of Samara. Since that time this Samara team under Sarah Thompson’s guidance has built up a substantial private game reserve where its essence is rooted in conservation and returning this game reserve to its natural ecological state. Samara has produced many conservation firsts in this area. One was the reintroduction of cheetah to this area in 2003 after having been missing for 125 years.

“Life in the natural world is more wonderous than we could ever imagine. There is strength, fortitude and intelligence beyond our imagination. Once we quieten down and observe we begin to see connections which were not evident to a passer by. With respectful, quiet observation we could learn much.” ~ Mike Haworth

Chilli’s story is an intriguing one which I will begin to describe in my next post.

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

Have fun, Mike

The Nakuru area lies within the inner graben of the central Kenya rift valley. Lake Nakuru’s graben lies between LionHill Volcano and the Mau Escarpment, the west wall of the Rift Valley, the base of which lies within the south-west corner of the area. Lake Nakuru is a shallow pan which never fills to a depth of more than a few feet but the level does fluctuate. Nakuru is characterised by its graben, the shallow alkaline lake which attracts many flamingoes and a huge fever tree forest.

“And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.” – John Muir

The Rhino Sanctuary in Lake Nakuru National Park was the first Rhino sanctuary in Kenya and is currently home to the largest number of black rhinos in the country. Currently the rhino sanctuary in Lake Nakuru National Park boasts 150 rhinos with 80% being white rhinos and 20% being black rhinos. The rhino sanctuary was established in 1984 when the first two rhinos were introduced to the lake Nakuru National Park. This national park was chosen as the first Rhino sanctuary as it was already a bird sanctuary and it had the needed land for the rhinos. The lake area provides the water the rhinos need every day and the vegetation in the park is also suitable for both the white and black rhinos.

The Fever trees in this forest are huge. The fever tree is the only tree species on earth whose bark performs the photosynthesis process instead of its leaves. Fever trees grow incredibly fast – they can reach a height of over 25m and grow in height approximately 1.5m annually. The Rift Valley forms the eastern distribution limit of the Defassa Waterbuck, which occur in grassland and open forest and scrub.

A DeFassa waterbuck female and her calf foraging in thick grass in the forest understory. The species is a grazer and always found where there is water nearby. It is classified by IUCN as Near Threatened, with a total population of about 95 000.

According to the Giraffe Conservation Foundation, the latest taxonomy study reveals that there are four distinct species; the Masai, Northern, Reticulated and Southern Giraffe. The Rothschild’s Giraffe is one subspecies of the Northern Giraffe. All four giraffe species and their subspecies live in geographically distinct areas throughout Africa.

The Rothschild’s Giraffe is the tallest of the four distinct species and five subspecies. It has a distinct colouring and coat patterning. Each giraffe has a different pattern just like humans have distinct fingerprints. This species of giraffe is paler, and has orange-brown patches which are less jagged in shape. This giraffe has no markings on its lower legs and under belly, which are predominately creamy white. The Rothschild’s Giraffe stands in stark contrast to the dark greens and yellows of the fever tree forest. The next image gives a sense of how tall the trees are in the fever tree forest south of Lake Nakuru. Today, fewer than 3 000 Rothschild’s giraffes are left in Africa, with about 800 in Kenya.

“I feel a great regard for trees; they represent age and beauty and the miracles of life and growth.” – Louise Dickinson Rich

The Rothschild’s Giraffe is the only giraffe species to be born with five ossicones. Two of these are the larger and more obvious ones at the top of the head, which are common to all giraffes. The third ossicone can often be seen in the center of the giraffe’s forehead, and the other two are behind each ear. This species of giraffe is also taller than many other populations, measuring up to 5.88 metres or 19.3 feet tall. Males are larger than females and feed on different parts of the trees. Rothschild’s Giraffe feed on leaves, flowers, seedpods, and fruits in areas where the savanna floor is salty or full of minerals.

There are small open patches in the forest which provide room for grazers such as this male impala.

“We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment.” ~Hilaire Belloc

Fever tree forests vary in density throughout the southern section of the park with some areas which are less dense allowing the sunlight to reach the ground. Fever trees are indigenous to southern and eastern Africa. Their preferred habitat is warm and humid conditions with access to plenty of water.

I absolutely love the feeling of driving slowly through the forest. It is cool and quiet but for bird calls. It is dense, and there is a bluish hue among the trees in the early morning and these areas are just bursting with life.

“Consider a tree for a moment. As beautiful as trees are to look at, we don’t see what goes on underground – as they grow roots. Trees must develop deep roots in order to grow strong and produce their beauty. But we don’t see the roots. We just see and enjoy the beauty. In much the same way, what goes on inside of us is like the roots of a tree.” – Joyce Meyer

The Eastern Black and White Colobus monkey is the most arboreal of all African monkeys. The only other place I have seen them has been along the Grumeti river in the western corridor of the Serengeti. They have beautiful black fur which contrasts with the long white mantle, whiskers, bushy tail, and beard around their black face. These monkeys are territorial and live in groups of as many as fifteen individuals.

“The wandering photographer sees the same show that everyone else sees. He, however, stops to watch it.” ~ Edouard Boubat

The name “Colobus” is derived from the Greek word for “mutilated,” because unlike other monkeys, Colobus monkeys do not have thumbs. There are two types of Colobus monkeys, the Angolan and the Eastern Black and White species. These Colobus monkeys are herbivores, eating leaves, fruit, flowers lichen and bark and have a ruminant-like digestive system.

Our sighting of this elusive very shy leopardess was down purely to good guiding from Mike Laubscher. We were driving on the road along the LionHill side of the lake. Mike heard Vervet monkeys’ alarm calling and they were persistent suggesting that the threat was still close to them. We found another side road closer to the Vervet monkeys and that gave us an opportunity to see which way the Vervets were looking. Mike scoured the fever trees with his binoculars in the direction the Vervets were looking and after about a quarter of an hour he spotted this leopardess lying on the large yellow bough of a huge fever tree. The leopardess was lying in deep shade so was very difficult to see her initially.

Leopards are notoriously secretive in this forest environment and given the colour of their coats against the fever tree branches it can be extremely difficult to see one. Once we had a fix on her she continued lying on the bough for another few minutes before deciding to descend the tree to get out of view from all concerned.

We found a pair of Bushbuck foraging in the thick verdant understory. They were very shy and as soon as they saw us on the road, which cut through the forest, they bolted for deeper cover. The Bushbuck’s diet consists mainly of leaves, herbs, twigs and flowers of different plant types and as a browser it seldom consumes grass. The Bushbuck is the only non-territorial and solitary African antelope.

Fever tree haves a very shallow root system so you will see many fallen tree trunks in the forest. This is an alluring feature for photographers because there is always the possibility of a raptor or a leopard or lion on the fallen tree trunk.

“If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you’ll come to understand that you’re connected with everything.” ~ Alan Watts

We got out of the vehicle and had a cup of coffee near this large fallen Fever tree trunk. It was absolutely beautiful. The understory is not easy to walk through and there are plenty of stinging nettles, which we soon discovered.

I was fortunate enough to spend ten days travelling around the Amboseli and Lake Nakuru National Parks with Mike Laubscher, a guide from Wild Eye. A big thank you to Mike for a fun and productive trip showing us around two fascinating and very different national parks in Kenya. A big thank you also to guide Jimmy who drove us around Amboseli and who has the most incredible eyesight and ability to predict the animal’s movement which enabled us to get into good photographic positions. Also to Sammy for driving us up to Lake Nakuru from Nairobi and back which was quite an exercise in its own right and for showing us around Lake Nakuru National Park and giving us some memorable sightings of rare mammals and birds. The guides from Wild Eye made a wonderful team without which we not have seen and experienced nearly as much as we did – thank you!

“I know not how I may seem to others, but to myself I am but a small child wandering upon the vast shores of knowledge, every now and then finding a small bright pebble to content myself with” ~ Plato

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

Have fun, Mike