Finding food is hard on a foggy savannah - Masai Mara - 1
Was fortunate to experience the disappointments in the grasslands. The fastest land mammal has about 50% success rate when out hunting. Their speed burst lasts a few minutes at the most and finding and catching something to feed on is a challenge, especially if a mom has three young cubs that cannot fend for themselves yet.
The morning in November started very foggy. We could barely see anything forget making images in it. I saw my first terrestrial hippo, but just could not make a meaningful image of it. We were roaming the Central Plains along the Mara River, when the guide exclaimed "Amani is at it". I have no idea how he saw that through the thick fog. Slowly but steadily we crept up to an area with several termite mounds and sure enough between the mounds we saw the faint spots of Amani with her three cubs in tow.
The cubs were merely looking like somnambulists trudging along behind mom. It was cold and the fog was wet. Mom would climb up on the mounds to see whatever she could. One of the land cruisers went ahead and scanned and came back to tell us that there were some Thommies up ahead and the cheetahs were headed that way.
We tracked the cheetahs for a bit and then drove up a bit to be treated to something even more enlightening (for my next story on the Gazelles).
This set will try and capture the cheetah's advancement towards the area where the "advance vehicle" returned with the news of a grazing herd. Will move on to the interaction within the herd with a second set and finally present what happened when the cheetahs got to the Gazelles.
Jan 16, 2020 at 05:42 PM
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