Day 11. Our last day for photographing the wildlife of Kenya has arrived. It will be a full day. We’ll start with our morning game drive, followed by a visit to the Maasai village here in the Mara. We’ll then have lunch followed by an afternoon game drive and then finally a bush dinner.
Once again we are out at sun up and witness a spectacularly colorful sunrise. We take this as a sign of good things to come. As we drive around we come across another jackal. I am always amazed at how sleek and beautiful these animals are. Then we come across a herd of hartebeest. We had seen several of these individuals before but never a herd. They are very unique. Despite the “beest” designation, they are related to the antelope and not the wildebeest.
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| Hartebeest |
I think that we have come across new species of birds every day that we have been in Africa and today was no different. While not as colorful as many others, the white browed coucal that we sighted was quite striking.
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| White Browed Coucal |
We then spotted a hyena and followed it back to its den. We parked for a while and waited. Sure enough, before long a young hyena pup came out to greet us. Cute little bugger!
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| Hyena Pup |
As we continued to explore the Mara we came across even more birds. There was a spar winged goose, another lilac breasted roller and up in the top of a tree a very large black chested snake eagle. He was very impressive looking up there surveying the savannah for his next meal.
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| Black Chested Snake Eagle |
Our final sighting for the morning was a group of warthogs. These little fellows are really funny. They are always running around with their tails straight up in the air. We found a family with mom, dad and two young ones who were content to allow us to photograph them before they took off.
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| Warthog Family |
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The rest of our morning and early afternoon would be spent at Henry’s Maasai village. That was such an incredible experience that I will devote tomorrow’s blog solely to that topic.
As we returned to camp we passed the local airstrip where we observed a Douglas DC-3. While the DC-3 is rare in the US it is still in use for transportation in many parts of Africa.
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| Douglas DC-3 |
We took off on our afternoon game drive at 4 pm as usual. This would be our last opportunity to spot a leopard. Alas, that would not happen, but what we did see was just as interesting.
First up, we came across a troop of baboons. These guys are always fascinating to watch as they push through the tall grass and into the trees. There were a couple dozen animals including several very large males and numerous young baboons.
Our guide then spotted a large male lion sleeping in the shade of some shrubs. His Highness emerged briefly to check out the Range Rovers surrounding him and then plopped down in the shade of one of them to continue his nap. Since he didn’t seem to be interested in much of anything other than sleeping we left.
However, we shortly found out why he was resting. Not far away we discovered a cape buffalo that had been killed. And we just as quickly spotted about 5 lions arrayed around the kill, protecting it from other predators. According to our guide, the females would remain on guard until the male returned for his fill, and then they would devour the rest.
We explored a bit more, finding another large herd of 50 to 60 impala. What was impressive was the fact that the herd was ruled by a single male! He certainly had his work cut out for him.
A bit later we returned to the site of the buffalo kill. The male had returned and had his meal and now it was time for the others. We watched as two lions, a female and a young male tore into the carcass, and continued to watch them tear at the kill until it was time to return to camp. By then the carcass was little more than a rib cage, skull and leg bones. We could also see in a nearby tree that vultures had gathered and were awaiting their turn at whatever remained.
Thus ended our safari. We enjoyed a delicious bush dinner that evening and the next day we would fly to Nairobi and then back to the US. However, our tale is not yet over. Come back tomorrow for a slide show of images from our visit with the Maasai.
