The Mara cats update

Shakira & Daughters on paradise plains earlier

One of the males in Notch's gang

One of Olive's cubs

Olive & one of her cubs

The Mara cats are having their easy meals this month before the last of the easy prey leaves. Many skeletons still lie across the plains as an evident of a big feast that was in the last season. From now on lion prides will be seen highly mobile in search for food especially the ones with cubs. Some prides go to an extend of splitting up because there is barely enough for them all at one go.
Over the past couple of weeks, the ridge pride have been roaming between around the southern base of Rhino ridge, Mara Intrepids and the Mara river area. There is one female with 3 month old cubs and one with 2 month old. They made very successful if not easy kills in the past months when the wildebeest were all over their territory.

Olive, our female leopard star and her 3 month old cubs are still around the junction of the Talek and Olare-Orok rivers. They have lately been moving between this place and the little forest between Mara Intrepids and Explorer camps.
Binti, her daughter is just downstream from where Olive is. They also took the opportunity when the wildebeest are streaming down south through their territories. We saw few young wildebeests’ carcasses in trees along the river.

Shakira, who for the past two years has been our main female cheetah star, is still around and still with her 3 daughters. she was seen the last two days at the border of Mara-serengeti on the south Mara Triangle. The many gazelle fawns born since the past 3 weeks have been providing her with some easy meals. The 3 brothers who are Honey’s cubs continue to roam far and wide from Musiara to paradise and south to Burrungat plains. There is another cheetah between Talek and Olkiombo airstrip with three very little cubs. This is not alama which we reported earlier. In general cheetah sightings have been the best this season.

Mara Big cats update

An inquisitive cheetah cub

Olive with one of the cubs this morning

A Male lion from paradise pride

All lion prides in our game viewing territory are still present in their home ranges. There were interesting sightings of these cats in the past week, hunting wildebeest, zebra and warthogs all to the excitement of our guests. One lioness from the Ridge pride with her cubs has been at maternity area for the past week, and has been very nice seeing her little cubs play in late afternoon. There are other lionesses with cubs as well. These are from Paradise, Olkiombo and Musiara prides. You simply can’t see time passing here! When watching these lions.

Leopard sighting have been very good if not better than the previous weeks. The most exciting moment was when Olive and her two cubs showed up occasionally. She has made a few kills in the past couple of weeks with some being witnessed by our guests. She killed an impala two days ago at the Olare-Orok crossing and dragged it into a bush before going to fetch her cubs. When coming with the cubs, it was nice to see her carrying one occasionally in her mouth so as to increase her walking pace to get to the kill. She gave us the sighting of the week, with her cubs coming out in the morning and late afternoon and playing endlessly. Binti, her older daughter was seen a few times near the rocky bend on the Talek river, a place which has been her area of abode for long.

Cheetah sightings were also good and a few successful hunting were also witnessed. Shakira has now moved up from lookout hill to paradise plain where she has been for over a week. The three brothers are also in the same location. There was drama yesterday, when the three brothers engaged her and her three daughters in some fight that lasted almost an hour before the boys decided to leave the poor ladies alone. The sight of the seven cheetahs was quite unusual and our guests were treated to this rare show.

There is a cheetah with three small cubs (not alama, the one mentioned in our past report) which is found to the east of Explorer, where she has been hunting over the past week. There is also one pregnant female in the location which we think could give birth any time.

The Big Cats This Week

Herds of wildebeests moving towards the river. These currently forms bulk of prey for our cats

Binti killing an Impala fawn

Alama's 3 cubs

Olive watching her cubs drinking in the Talek river

Some of the Marsh pride females and cubs at Bila shaka

We had a great week now ending, in terms of big cats sightings.
Topping the list of the big cats which we saw over the week, was Olive, the female leopard with her two cubs on the Talek yesterday morning. She had disappeared briefly but emerged again on Friday with her cubs in good shape. The two cubs whose sexes we have not yet established are in good health and have given us over the past two days, great sightings playing on the sand in the Talek just before where Olare-Orok joints it. This particular area is cover by a thick bush which gives her and the cubs a good hiding cover. Today she moved the cubs in the morning further upstream towards Mara Intrepids camp and settle in the small forest on the south side of the river.

Binti is still in her mother’s territory and was seen a few times over the past week. I saw her kill a young Impala on 7/9/09 in the morning. I had been following an Impala with a young one who were running along the edge of the bushes in the area where I had heard earlier that Binti was seen. While concentrating on the Impala, I did not know that she had seen them, she came out of the bush and chased the two and managed to catch up with the fawn and killed it 30 feet from my vehicle. The action was too fast for me to take any picture of the chase.

At the Helicopter crossing on 9/9/09 Kali was held hostage in a tree the whole day when lions who chased him up there killed a zebra nearby therefore just settling near the same tree. The poor boy stayed there until night fall. When I visited the area, the next morning he was down. He may have come down early in the morning when the lions moved just a little away.

There is a female cheetah named Alama by the guides, due to a prominent black spot on her left cheek, has 3 small cubs (roughly 2- 2.5 months old). This is the female that lost her cubs earlier in the year when buffalos killed them. she can be found east of Olkiombo area.
Shakira is still in the southern part of the reserve, near lookout hill. Still doing very well with her cubs. It is great watching her with her daughters hunting.

We saw all the lions prides in our game viewing zone over the week. The marsh pride is still at Bila shaka and has been having great time hunting now that there is a concentration of wildebeest it the area. The paradise pride with a number of females having small cubs is now near the main wildebeests crossing.
There was a big drama on the morning of the 7/9/09 when notch and one of his sons fought and chased off one of the Olkiombo pride males near Rekero camp.

More to come from the Mara

Wildebeest migration status

Map of Masai Mara showing location of the wildebeest herds

The wildebeest migration is still on in the Mara. Most of the animals are now spread out on the Mara triangle plains. There are very patchy concentrations in the north of the reserve around Musiara gate and Topi plains. It is still dry and hot during the days and most temporary pools have dried up, making the animals converge at watering holes or streams to drink in during the day. The higher concentration on Mara triangle is mainly due to some light showers that have occasionally been going through area.

This area is still teeming with grass and much of the plains was not burnt earlier as it was in other places, thereby sparing the grass for the hungry herbivores for the dry period. The most dominant species of grass here is mostly the red oat grass which is an increaser. The more it is fed upon, the more it regenerates soon after the rains and therefore overgrazing here is beneficial to the maintenance of this species.
There were crossing activities at the river, but only a handful animals crossing in either direction at the main points near lookout hill and paradise crossing points. The predation on the crossing herds by the crocodiles has gone down due the low level of water which is making it difficult for the crocodiles to approach the crossing animals unnoticed.

Olive with cub

Olive carrying her cub: Photo Courtesy of Evelyne Meijssen

I had promised to post here a picture of Olive with her cub. The above picture was taken at the Talek river on 15/8/09 courtesy of Mara Intrepids guest Evelyne Meijssen

Olive ws een mating with a male a few days ago as per my previous post. this new development has casued us confused because we have since seen her with cubs yet we thoguht for moment maybe they were dead. Her story since she last year has been a very unusal one after she managed to live with her two litters. it took me and a friend, Federico, a professional photgrapher and Mara resident, quite sometimes to figure out what wa s going on. we first thought the young cub Kali belonged to Ayah.

I will keep updating you on Olive as we try to understand this interesting behaviour.

Olive's riddle

Olive mating with Rhino Ridge male

Olive and the male

Olive, the Mara female leopard is now mating, a few days after she is seen with small cubs on the Talek river. She was first seen on 27th July carrying a small cub at the Olare-Orok river crossing. The cubs were not seen after that, but Olive kept being seen around that location for a while. She was again seen on 15th August carrying a cub on the Talek River Bank where she proceeded to hide it in a hole under a tree on the bank of the river. After a few minutes she went back and brought a second cub. She then continued to be seen in the area until 19th August when she moved upstream of Olare-Orok river.

On the morning of the 21st August, she was seen at the double crossing area mating with Rhino ridge male. There was also an unidentified female in the vicinity. In the evening when I went there, the two were mating, sometimes in the open. This was my second time in my 17 years of guiding to see mating leopards clearly. When it was getting late they moved to the adjacent stream, where they got into a bush. At this time another female leopard emerged from the bush and Olive ran away. It was getting dark and I could not tell what happened again. However they were at it again the following day.

This morning I saw them at the smelly crossing heading to the location of the cubs. We now wonder whether the cubs are indeed still alive and if they are, what is going to happen when the male sees them.
The territory where the cubs are belongs to another big male leopard called Big Boy. I believe, when Olive disappeared briefly earlier in the year, she must have mated and conceived from the Rhino ridge male because when she final appeared, she was coming from the direction where this male normally stays. And if this is the case, the current development could be a bid to lure him closer to the cubs so that he protects them. while this is happening, a guide reported seeing the cubsOtherwise I remain to observe what will happen.

Masai Mara past week

Current wildebeest concentration

Paradise pride lionees carrying cub

Lion from ridge pride with Zebra kill

Wildebeest crossing at the Cul de sac

The wildebeest migration is still ongoing in the Mara. The concentration of the migrating herds is now almost spread out across the whole of the Mara triangle, with quite some big herds on paradise plains as well. The Serengeti herds in the past week kept streaming in from the south with the leading herds pushing further north and others west wards into the Mara triangle. These kept crossing the River by look out hill over the week. The recently burnt grasslands on the Mara triangle seems to have and still is an attraction, as more herds are still heading there.

There have a heavy crossing activity at the paradise crossing point over the past week as herds cross over to the west of the Mara River. These were the herds that were crossing east from the Mara triangle last week. Now they are going back. The crossing activity however is not exiting as usual since the amount of water in the river is very low, which actually makes the crossing just like a walk across. The animals are having it easy due to the low water level. The situation in the river is now unfavourable to the crocodiles who are really struggling to make any kill. They cannot stalk anything in water since they can be seen approaching. Deep water usually helps them drown their prey easily.

The lions are having an easy time now with the availability of prey almost on daily basis. A few lion pride s have small cubs at the moment. We witnessed great hunts and kills in the past two weeks.

Cheetahs were also seen over the same period. Shakira has moved south of Talek river and even lately has been beyond Olkeju-Rongai. Her three cubs are now quite active and have been witnessed to make their own kill. The three brothers (honey’s sons) have lately been roaming between Musiara marsh and the Talek river.