Starting the hunt.
Our van was stopped and we were watching a momma cheetah and her two yearlings sitting on a low dirt mound.
Suddenly momma perked up- a small herd of impala came into view from behind some bushes. After a few seconds of watching, momma cheetah loped down into a shallow arroyo- eyes on her target.
Her two babies followed.
The babies were experienced enough to NOT get so excited that they ruined the hunt by bounding uselessly after the impalas.
Momma took a dozen or so steps- then froze. Then a dozen more and froze again.
Eager-but still disciplined- her twins gradually caught up with her before she began the actual attack. The impalas were out of our sight by then, and our driver didn't want to start the engine because it might affect the hunt.
So, when momma sprang to the attack, she and the impalas were quickly out of our sight.
We couldn't see the result of the hunt until a few minutes later.
Thanks Howard, Ron, David and Kenny.
A visitor seeing any kind of real action seldom happens in the overall scheme of things- and for several reasons. One is that most predators do their work at night, and in the national parks, we couldn't be out of camp when it was dark.
Cheetahs depend on their speed, so they hunt mostly in the daytime, and I was happy to see parts of this little vignette.
Charlie
.