Marsh
pride on 13th and 14th August 2012.
The accompanying female,checking on the tyre.
Yesterday
we left the camp at 6:30 am and 30 minutes later we spotted a
lioness,from marsh pride with her 3 cubs crossing Governor's
airstrip.She was accompanied by another lioness of theirs and in
there was one male,one of the muskateers.,she led the cubs to musiara
marsh,we Guides from Governor's call this famous marsh,Lake Nakuru
because sometimes back in 1990s two flamingoes landed there and it is
Lake Nakuru National park that is known to be home to thousands of
flamingoes,those guides at that time gave that name.
This lake nakuru of ours is where one of the
females from marsh pride earlier this year,or late last year(i can
not really remember well) but some of my colleagues spotted the
action taking place,that she lost one of her two cubs to a martial
eagle which is a resident there,the other cu dissapeared through
uknown circumstances,could she/he has been taken by a martial
eagle?Who was the mother of these cubs?,no clear records on
this.Martial eagle is of no doubt one of the biggest eagle i
know,they have big and strong claws and power to even fly a 3kg
animal,my mum told me that it can even fly away with our babies that
is human beings!!,then for sure if it can do this would a lion cub be
anything to them?look at the photos of martial eagle below.In
musiara marsh(Lake Nakuru),we now have two of them an adult with a
juvunile.
Martial Eagle,look how big the claws are!!
Did the marsh pride lioness made a right
decision?I would reply a big No if I was to be asked this
question,with an automatic explanation of what it happened in the
past through what I witnessed yesterday in the evening,although not
bad news........On my afternoon game drive yesterday we left Little
Governor's Camp,where iam guiding Lakey family there until friday,we
drove through thousands of wildbeests who for the last 4,5 or 6 days
have camped in the marsh to where this mum with the cubs was,we did
not find it at where her cubs were hidden but through our binoculars
we spotted her walking amongst the wildbeests and for sure she was
hunting not succesful though,and at that time the sun was extremely
boiling us.All this time that I did not how long ago she left,the
cubs were on their own about 500 yards from the martial eagle's nest
where the juvunile one was hatched,very frightening!.She later on
walk back to where her cubs,just in the middle of the marsh amongst
the papyrus reeds and a few metres from the big hippo and a Nile
monitor Lizard!!,i asked myself one question that if a family of
elephants that we spotted a few days ago feeding here would have been
here at the time of the cubs hidding themselves,what would have
happened?the anser would habe been.................,after she she
arrived at where she had hidden the cubs she called them and two cubs
turned up,where is the third cub?has anything bad happened to
him/her? We watched them for about half an hour and we left with only
two cubs there,and at this time I said or could this be another
lioness?since marsh pride is abit complex at the moment with some
saying there are more than six cubs,and therefore more than 4
mums!!!,and do not laugh at me because iam still trying to confirm
the other 1/2 mums apart from Bibi who she might have had her cub/s
adopted by sienna who for sure she has cubs or by this female we are
'talking' of at the moment,though now I know her now.
Nile monitor Lizard not a dangerous one though!
A male hippo,near where the cubs are.
We decided to take a break and we stopped by
the dam by the airstrip watched some hippos and ''marked our
territories'',we left there and 4 minutes later we found the mating
couple few yards after you leave Governor's airstrip on your way to
main Camp,watched them doing what they had made them separate
themselves from the rest of the pride,i did not have even tiny
information of them that they were at this place because we had not
spotted them in the morning,we had only spotted one male.This is
great luck,having have watched the cubs and mating lions,one of the
very rare day we had but this morning was even more of special.
The mating couple.
We left Little Governor's with
picnic breakfast boxes(14th
Aug),with one aim that we want to go and check on the lioness with
the cubs on how she was doing,we were the first jeep there and very
good news we found that there were 3 cubs,and for sure nothing bad
had happened to him/her,they were all happy playing around her mum
who she was feeding on a reedbuck,that somebody said she had it
yesterday in the evening,and why was she hunting wildbeests if she
had another kill?for sports/fun????.One very unique thing at this
time as we watched this family,a leopard was walking on the opposite
side of the swamp where we were,and we had no option but to try to
get a better position of getting a good view of this elusive cat,that
simion one of my clients,extremely wanted to see,asking fo it as soon
as they arrived,but we got it,what a big luck,we saw her walking
around and climbng up a tree after not finding thicker bushed to
hide,but look the mum lioness with her cubs left the swamp walked
with her cubs to a point which was directly opposite the tree that a
leopard was!!,would this leopard spend the day up the tree?A leopard
locked up a tree by lioness with the cubs in lake Nakuru,was the
message that spread allover,every body was heading there,what a sweet
coincidence for the safari tourists and bad luck for the leopard who
had to spend the whole day there????,
Mama toto with her" sweeties"
A leopard locked up a tree!!
We stayed there for about 30 minutes and we
set set off watched one lioness who she was accompanying the mama
toto yesterday and a few minutes and about a kilometre from where
this lioness was we spotted a male lion dragging a wildbeest,we
headed there to discover that he was the matin couple we saw last
evening and we did not even watched them for more than 4 minutes and
the lioness spotted her female colleague and she fled leaving her
man,and the male was in dilemma of what to do of to follow his
princess or to protect the kill,he later on decided to follow her and
at the time of watching these two running towards the female
accompanying mama toto,Scarface turned up and too he was following
them.we had no other option but to go back again and see what drama
was developing there.
Very special,very special,they were all
together;mama toto,two other females and the two muskateers.Scarface
at one point was harrassed by his brother,but he was sooooo..
submissive.The lioness she was mating climbed up a tree there and his
mate was waiting there,and one very interesting behaviour here was
that not even one of the males checked on the cubs,and as all these
happened The truoubled leopard watched this.What a lovely morning,we
set off to go and look for Malaika,the cheetah,Giraffes and
crocodiles who were on my list for that day.
One of the female accompanying the lioness with the cubs yesterday on a tree.
Malaika
the Cheetah and her cub on 14th August 2012.
After a
lovely morning with the marsh pride we were looking for a cheetah and
we found malaika who she tried hunting Grants' Gazelle
unsuccesfully,she was In taller grass area and we decided to leave
for breakfast and to come back later,we had ourbreakfast by mara
river,watched the hippos and very lucky enough I ticked of Giraffes
and crocodile drom my list,they were both there.we were done with our
breakfast,drove towards where our cheetah was.This is the cheetah
that we have been following for nearly two months from the time she
had two cubs to-date with only one ,and almost spotted daily,she is a
true angel for not all cheetahs exhibit this.We found her on top of
a safari jeep,great shots we had and all those other people who were
there,but for the first time we saw the cub trying to jump on to
where the mum was,she was of no doubt learning,good luck on this,and
very sure that in the next few months she would be doing like mum.
