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.