We are now very much into dry season. The grasses have turned a lovely golden brown and the sunrises and sunsets are spectacular. The days are warm and the evenings cool and clear which make for great star viewing. I really enjoy this time of year as it’s how we all imagine Africa.
The lions blend perfectly into the grass with their tawny coloured coats. That didn’t help the lioness and 2 cubs we watched climbing up a tree the other day. They could be seen from a long way off when they got into a muddle as they tried to climb down; it was very amusing to watch.
Lions are not very good climbers, unlike leopards. When the same lioness discovered a leopard with a kill stashed in the branches of an acacia tree a few days later, she tried to jump up after it.
The leopard shot up into the topmost branches, perching right on top of the canopy, which looked very uncomfortable. She was eventually joined by another lioness and we spent a very enjoyable ten minutes watching them trying to scramble up the tree, until they became hopelessly stuck half way up. The pair of lionesses didn’t know how to get down; they finally ended up just dropping, landing with a huge thud. Luckily for the leopard a spotted hyena walked passed and the two lionesses chased off after it and disappeared. The leopard soon came down from the canopy and settled down to its kill only to find a striped hyena sniffing around the base of the tree a short while afterwards. The leopard’s reaction was totally different this time merely watching the hyena, until it moved off.
There have been lots of great lion sightings this month. Guests have been lucky to see 6 tiny lion cubs at Masek this week which only looked to be a few weeks old. It’s a hard time of year to be born, so fingers crossed. Two lionesses were also seen half-heartedly stalking an old buffalo bull recently, also at Masek. The buffalo was having none of it and chased them off. The buffalo only had half a tail, probably the scar from a previous attack, so maybe he was a little more grumpy than normal. I saw a lioness with two five-month- old cubs charge a spotted hyena that obviously came too close. She managed to catch the hyena and gave it a beating, as she repeatedly knocked it down and cuffed it with her paws, letting it go, then knocking it down again. She could easily have killed the hyena but she just roughed it up and let it go once she had taught it a lesson.
As I mentioned earlier we’ve had some great sightings of lions resting in trees lately, which has made for some great photographic opportunities. And finally one group of guests found the Masek pride eating a baby elephant this month. I don’t know if the young elephant had died or the lions had killed it. I really can’t imagine the lions would be able to kill a baby elephant if its mother had been present as they protect them jealously. I guess we’ll never know what happened? One lucky group of guests saw five different species of cat while at Ndutu recently including a leopard that went under their car, which was very bizarre.
At the beginning of June, the Serengeti Cheetah Project booked out the whole lodge to hold a 3-day workshop to discuss cheetah conservation in Africa. Researchers, scientists and conservationists came from all over the world to participate. The meeting went very well and it was great to meet people from all over Africa and hear their tales of cheetahs. A pair of genets decided to make an appearance which held up their last lecture. They started to play amongst the roof rafters right in the middle of a very serious discussion and apparently everyone was thrilled.
On the day of departure an amazing thing happened. Some of the group had to leave very early that morning and as they were walking from their rooms down to the main lodge building, two cheetahs crossed their path to the reception. I can’t think of a nicer way to leave the lodge than to have two of these beautiful cats pass by; and what luck that it happened for the cheetah conference.
Ndutu,
July 2004.
