Holiday Season - Maasai Mara

The weather is great after the recent short rains. It’s clear in the mornings and cool in the afternoons with rain on the peripheries of the Mara.

The grass is green and fresh after the annual world-famous wildebeest migration. The old grass was grazed upon by the migrating wildebeest and zebras from the neighbouring Serengeti in Tanzania.

The lactating herbivorous females are well-fed on the fresh grass and are able to produce a lot of milk for their young ones.  In this season of plenty, the grasslands are dotted with wild flowers in bloom.

       

Updates

The Domestic Migration of Wildebeest and Zebras

The herds of wildebeest and zebras from the Loita Plains (east of the Mara Reserve) form the domestic migration. They have not returned to their calving grounds because there has been no rain in the area.

Therefore we are still enjoying big herds around the Olkiombo Plains. This means that predators like the big cats are in close range of the Mara Intrepids and Mara Explorer camps and our guests are treated to good sightings of the cheetah, leopards and lions.

There is an abundance of other plains game. The elephants have also come out of the bushes after the migrating wildebeest and zebra cropped down the tall grass. The elephants are now gorging themselves on the new shoots.

 

        

 

   

PREDATORS SIGHTINGS

LIONS

Lion sightings are good around Olkiombo Plains. 

All the prides are coming together to strengthen their bonding. Notch and his sons are with the Olkiombo Pride.  The lioness in the pride has two cubs aged three months. One of the cubs has a deformed foreleg but it manages to move around.

The Ridge Pride has also returned to its residential place after hanging around for a month by the Olkiombo airstrip and Notch and his boys refusing to join the pride. However a young male joined the pride from somewhere and was seen mating with the Ridge female on recently. We do not know this male and will keep tabs on him.

The Paradise Pride is doing well with three males who took over from the Notch group without a fight.

   

LEOPARDS

Olive mated with the Ridge male between Olare Orok and the Rhino Ridge three weeks ago. We are expecting the new cubs by the end of February 2013.

Bahati mated one and half months ago near the Fig Tree rock by the junction of Talek and Olare Orok, west of the Mara Intrepids Camp. The cubs are due by January 2013.

Olive and Bahati are still sharing the same territory but Bahati is spending a lot of time west of Mara Intrepids Camp. Olive is still with Saba who is ten months old, patrolling her territory around Smelly Crossing at Olare Orok.

CHEETAH

Cheetah sightings are also good around the Olkiombo Plains.

Malaika is with her cub aged nearly eight months. They are eight kilometers south of Mara Intrepids Camp on the Central Plain where the grass was burned. It now attracts a large population of gazelles browsing on the new shoots.

Alama with her two cubs aged seven months is east of Mara Intrepids Camp between Olare Orok Conservancy and Maasai Mara National Reserve.  

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 &  Dixon "DC" Chelule, Mara Explorer & Mara Intrepids Camp ©Heritage Hotels Ltd, Kenya.http://www.heritage-eastafrica.com/