Masai Mara, January 2011

Weather and the Plains

January has been a typically hot month exceeding 30 degrees celsius around mid day with early mornings and evenings remaining fairly cool. We had a total of 92.5mm of rain through the month, receiving the most in the first 12 days and then very sparing light showers in the last couple of weeks.

The grass plains have mostly remained short, lush and green where the animals have kept it cropped. Up on Rhino Ridge and towards Paradise Plains it has grown beautifully to about half a meter. The short green grass is perfect for the plains game at this time as it is the most palatable and nutrient rich, it also means the predators are much more visible.

Migratory animals

We have had vast herds of zebra and a few small groups of mostly male wildebeest move in and out of the northern boundaries of the Masai Mara Reserve tantalising the Marsh Pride of lions. These zebra and wildebeest are part of the resident Loita migration which spend their time between the Loita Plains near the Rift Valley escarpment in the east and the Masai Mara Reserve. We have had better rains in the Mara hence the large herds of zebra, but the wildebeest cows have moved over to the Loita Plains in preparation to have their calves in February and March.

We have also had some amazing migratory birds through the Mara. The Steppes Eagle which has flown all the way from the Russian steppes, Violet Backed Starlings which migrate around Kenya following the fruiting trees, European Bee-Eaters, Eurasian Rollers, Pallid Harriers, Common Kestrels and a few white storks. Huge flocks of many types of swallows, swifts and martins flying ahead of the rain storms picking off the insects that have been startled into flight.

Resident Wildlife

Mocker and Green-Banded Swallowtail butterflies have been flitting through the forests, and there has been a large presence of the raucous Black and White Hornbills. As the Warburgia Ugandensis trees continue to fruit the baboons have taken to sitting under the trees feasting, they eat everything but the skins. Up above in the branches the parrots eat out only the seed and conveniently drop the rest of the fruit down on the baboons waiting below.

The Mara River was flowing strongly until the last week of the month when it receded to a very shallow level in some places. The hippos have all squeezed into the deeper pools on the bends of the river all this close quarters living has resulted in a few more hippo fights than usual. For safety reasons the females with their new young of about 4-8 weeks try to keep their distance from the larger pods of boisterous hippos.

The new generation of plains game are in great condition after the rain with plenty of lush green grass to eat. The warthogs have probably had the most casualties thus far. Lions usually wait until the grass is longer and the rest of the plains game have moved on before they target the warthogs, this year seems different.

Through the month many of the elephant moved on into the acacia areas in the North and East of the Mara as it started to become drier. Acacia trees retain moisture in hot dry conditions as they have a thick bark and small twice compound leaves (pinnae) which can be held horizontally for sunlight or vertically to reduce transpiration. Elephants get a lot of their nutrition from these trees as well as medicinal value, depending on the acacia and the part eaten. Masai will actually make a tea from fresh elephant dung to alleviate stomach problems

The Marsh pride of lions are spending their days between the long sedge in the Musiara Marsh and the Bila Shaka river line. At night they are moving out of the reserve hunting zebra, but returning to the marsh first thing in the morning to avoid the Masai and their cattle. The pride have mostly been together throughout  January, we saw them all early one morning feeding on a topi a stones throw away from the Musiara Gate and rangers houses. The lionesses were seen killing three warthog in one day, catching them just before they disappeared into their burrows. Whilst they were feeding on one of the kills a leopardess we are not familiar with, not far away was observing them nonchalantly in a tree. The very next day they killed a further two warthogs. Claude the elder of the two pride lions, seems to be recovering fairly well, his limp is much better now. This is good news for the safety of the pride and to ensure his progeny grow up to adulthood.

The sub-adults from the first litter of the Marsh pride have been up on Rhino Ridge, the females on the Bila Shaka side and the four males on the Mara River end and Paradise Plains. The four males have marginalised the 5^th male sibling as he is in bad shape. We are not so sure what happened to him but he started with a very bad limp and some puncture wounds, next his whole front left fore-leg was missing. He has managed to survive so far, his condition has been reported to the warden and we shall follow his progress closely.

The Ridge pride are on the South Eastern side of Rhino Ridge toward the Talek River. It seems they are keeping their distance from the sub-adults of the Marsh Pride. They are not seen as frequently as they are some distance away now and are in some tough terrain. They were sighted feeding on a buffalo one day which is a good sign as it shows they are in good health as a buffalo is no small task to take down.

The Paradise pride lionesses have moved out from the Croton thickets. As the Mara River is so low they cross over regularly. At the main crossing, next to the river bank on the Mara Triangle side they had killed a young hippo. The pride were feasting on it first thing in the morning when a whole pack of hyena came over to investigate and started haggling the lionesses. They managed to keep them at bay until they had a good feed, but were eventually worn down and left the remainder to the hyenas which made short work of the remains. Notch the patriarch lion and one of his sons have been sighted a few times, whilst the other four lions have been covering a huge area and have not been seen much. The four males have reportedly on two occasions killed the cubs of a pride between the Talek river and the Ol Keju Ronkai river. As they are further away and do not see them regularly, we are unsure as to whether they are attempting a pride take over or not. This would be ambitious as they already have the paradise pride territory.

The three cheetah boys have been in the area the whole month. Some of our guests had a great sighting of them bringing down a hartebeest. There were two male hartebeest on the top plains completely absorbed in fighting for a territory, when the cheetahs happened on them. Before the hartebeest realised what was going on one of the cheetahs had stealthily run up and was on one, whilst the other hartebeest managed to flee.

Cheetah

The mother cheetah and her two sub-adult boys brought down an adult topi, they managed to eat a fair amount before a few hyenas pushed them off. Its a tough life being a cheetah, but tenacious as every they persevered and the very next day they took down a Thompson Gazelle and ate the whole thing undisturbed.

The cheetah mother with the single cub was seen with an impala kill near the marsh in the evening, whilst she ate the Il Moran leopard sat in a nearby bush watching.

The single male cheetah with the patch on his left shoulder (looking more like discolouration than mange) has been active in the area this last month. He has killed a bush buck and an impala near the riverine forest, the impala was actually stolen by the males of the local baboon troop. Unfortunately the cheetah had a second bad encounter where he was mobbed, once again, by baboons, he ran off and we have not seen him since.

We have heard that Shakira and her six cubs are far off in a closed area of the Mara, hopefully getting some peace.

The resident Il Moran leopardess has also had a couple of close encounters with baboons; whilst she was relaxing in a tree a group of baboons were taunting her and calling out below the tree. Leopards do not like this, a couple of days later she got her own back and was seen eating a baboon in a tree.

There were a couple of sightings of the big male leopard along the forest down towards private camp. Olive and her two cubs are still well even after a few adventures. She was spotted hunting a warthog through the bushes, made a chase but missed. She was then chased up a tree by a hyena. Olive unknowingly walked too close to a lioness with very young cubs and was chased off. She then got into a flight with the lioness and has some bad claw marks on her rear to show for it.

Musiara Resident Lepoards

Her young male cub from the previous litter is seen fairly regularly patrolling his territory along the Talek River. And another lesser known leopard east of the main crossing at the Mara river had a reedbuck kill up in a tree along a small river line.

We hope to share the magic of our corner of the Mara with you sometime soon.