Hippo For Breakfast!

Weather

It’s been wet and muddy with the rivers and luggas overflowing. Game drives are only possible with 4x4 vehicles.

From Mara Intrepids Camp it’s possible to access all sides of the reserve. Guests walk across the camp’s foot bridge to the vehicles parked on the other side of Talek River. It’s quite spectacular to cross this suspended bridge when the river is in full spate and be able to see the occasional crocodile sunning itself on one of the rocks.

Mara Intrepid's foot bridge. File.

There are heavy downpours on most evenings but by morning the sky is clear followed by a hot day.

Temperature

17^0c morning

28^0c at midday

22^0c after sunset.

 The Plain game

The grass is overgrown in some areas of the reserve, pushing the grazers to plains with shorter grass. For some grazers, it’s a safety measure, for if they stay where the grass is too tall they can’t see the predators which use the grass as cover to stalk their prey.

Other grazers are just specialized short grass feeders.

Predators

Lions

Lion’s sightings are good. They are easily seen in their territories searching for prey - warthogs and Topis are their main target.

Notch’s boys can’t starve with hippos around. Since the start of this year, they have already killed two hippos in Talek River, three kilometers south of Mara Intrepids Camp.

The lion cubs are struggling to survive for there is not enough food for them. If this continues, we are likely to lose some cubs to starvation.

Mohican and Romeo 2

Mohican and Romeo 2 have established themselves with three lionesses and six cubs aged four months at Double Cross, between Intiakitiak and Olare Orok. Mohican and Romeo 2 are sons of Chesa and Sala from the Olkiombo pride. Their father was killed when Notch and his sons took over the Olkiombo pride. They have taken over a section of the Ridge pride which disintegrated to form their own pride.

Cheetah

Malaika is expecting. She’s roaming around Shamarta Hill overlooking Mara River, which is five kilometers west of Mara Intrepids Camp.

Amani’s three cubs’ – that’s two males and one female are still together. They separated from the mother in September 2013 and are seen around Mara Explorer and Double-Crossing River.

Leopard

The new leopard male, who is shy and skittish is seen around Double-Crossing and Mara Explorer Camp. He may be tracking Olive’s female cubs, Saba and Bahati.

Saba has established herself at Mara Explorer while Bahati is controlling the area around Talek and Olare Orok rivers.

Shujaa scans the plains from a vantage point.

Bahati, Olive's daughter, just behind the Mara Intrepids foot bridge.

Shujaa and Siri are at Shamarta and Paradise plains.

Other special cat sightings 

Two caracal couples based between Smelly and Double crossing are expecting kittens. They are hard to spot in the Mara ecosystem but keep to within this territory. We shall try to keep a look out on these families and report on the new litters.

Caracals resemble the serval cats but don't have spots.

Caracal. Image shared from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. 

The caracal is also known as a desert lynx and is distributed in Africa, central and southwest Asia, into parts of India. The caracal has been classified variously with Lynx and Felis in the past, but molecular evidence supports a monophyletic genus that is closely allied with the African golden cat and serval. Additional info from Wikipedia.

A serval cat. File © Heritage Hotels

Heritage Hotels (Kenya) manages two luxury camps in the Masai Mara - Mara Explorer and Mara Intrepids - in the confluence of the four game viewing areas of the Masai Mara. The camps are on the banks of the Talek River, with most tents spread along the banks.  Report and pictures by John Parmasau. ©Heritage Hotels Ltd, Kenya. http://www.heritage-eastafrica.com/

Out And About In Ziwani, Tsavo West

MASAI GIRAFFE

Driving to Serengeti plains (not to be confused with Serengeti National Park in northern Tanzania), our guests had one wish – to see the Masai giraffe. They had never seen them in the wild. Luckily near Lake Jipe we spotted a herd after which we returned to the Camp via Slaughter hill and the Sniper Tree – both features of the First World War.

NORTHERN WHITE-CROWNED SHRIKE (Eurocephalus rueppelli)

With up to 200 different species of birds around the Santé River, the Northern White-Crowned shrike is often seen in pairs of 3 or 4. They spend much of the time hunting from exposed perches. They are quite vocal, sometimes producing harsh scolding notes and at other times musical tweets. This picture of the shrike was taken in the Camp.

THE RED BISHOP

A seasonal bird at the Camp, we’ve had great sightings during the rains along Sante River.

SPOTTED HYEANAS

Spotted hyenas are the largest and most powerful of the three species of hyena found in Africa. They are also the most numerous of East Africa’s large predators.

During the day, hyenas often lie in shallow muddy pools to keep cool. We see them often on game drives.

However, we also have the Stripped hyenas in our Sanctuary. They are rare and strictly nocturnal predators. We sometimes see them on our night game drives.

HIPPO HOME DEFENSE

According to African cultural beliefs, (for example the Maasai), the hippopotamus are regarded as very jealous in terms of sharing females in their territory. It doesn’t exist. Male hippos will fight to death to defend their territory.

This is what we witnessed with our guests during the night game drive and lots of thanks to Liz and Wayne Peachey from England for sharing with us with these amazing photographs of the fight.

This huge Hippo was captured while grazing in Sante River after a rest at the restaurant foyer.

AN UNUSUAL ZEBRA

A few months ago, I reported about the Albino zebra on Ziwani plains. A few days ago, we were on a game drive in the Sanctuary, looking out for the three cheetah brothers (i.e. Kazungu, Juma and Patrick) whom we had not seen for a few months.

We headed to Kidong plains since the Sanctuary has been extended that far. Both sides of the road were occupied by large herds of zebras when I spotted the albino zebra in the middle of other zebras. It was good seeing him again – alive.

Heritage Hotels (Kenya) manages one luxury camp on the western edge of Tsavo West National Park - Voyager Ziwani Camp. Located on a private sanctuary on the western edge of Tsavo, the camp sits on a secluded dam on the Sante River – home to turtles, crocodiles and hundreds of basking hippos.   Reports and pictures by Salim Ibrahim & Stephen "Chameleon" Lekatoo, Voyager Ziwani Camp ©Heritage Hotels Ltd, Kenya. http://www.heritage-eastafrica.com/