Masai Mara National Reserve, Kenya - May 2014
Masai Mara NR encompasses 580 square miles and is contiguous with the border of Tanzania and Serengeti NP. We drove in from Lake Nakuru NP, a distance of 169 miles, and had an afternoon game drive on our way in to the Mara Serena Lodge where we stayed for two nights. The next day we had a morning and afternoon game drive, broken up by lunch at the lodge, then we had an evening game drive from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.
This is one of the best places to see the big cats. We watched a cheetah feasting upon a baby defassa waterbuck while the mother waterbuck looked on, some distance away. Some distance behind the mother waterbuck was a spotted hyena, watching, ready to swoop in and steal the baby waterbuck from the cheetah. We watched two lionesses feasting upon a recently downed zebra. We watched a large pride of female lionesses stake out a herd of zebras. Multiple lionesses spread out as they stalked the zebras while one lioness stayed back to watch over four young lion cubs that wrestled each other while the drama was taking place. We watched a regal male lion walking alone in the tall grass among scattered trees. We watched five young lion cubs standing on a mound in a large field, presumably their den, all alone, waiting patiently for their mother. We watched a cheetah saunter by our vehicle while multiple zebra, topi and defassa waterbuck looked warily at it, ears up at full attention, at times nervously moving back.
The Mara River was home to a large congregation of hippos. Some were solitary, we saw several completely out of the water. Others were tightly packed into fetid water splashing, grunting and showing their teeth. On another part of the Mara we watched gigantic Nile crocodiles basking in the sun on the banks. These crocodiles were far larger than the crocodiles we saw in other areas, a testament to the good feed they get from the great migration.
We saw a group of three Masai giraffes necking, their necks swinging in slow motion at each other. On our night drive we saw hippos wandering far from the river and watched a rarely seen aardvark.
Outside our individual cabins we found multiple beautiful pink and blue mwanza flat-headed rock agamas (lizards) in the nearby rocks as well as bush hyrax. A bushbuck walked right under our balcony and two olive baboons entered into our room through our open balcony door while I took a short nap on the bed. I had to scream at them to get out.
We saw at least 15 species of mammal, including many lions, a number of cheetahs, Maasai giraffes, Cape buffalo, defassa waterbuck, topi, Thomson's gazelle, eastern black-backed jackal, spotted hyena, olive baboons, Grant's zebra, hippos, a few elephants, a Bohor reedbuck and an aardvark.
We saw at least five species of bird, including some Maasai ostrich, crowned lapwing, lilac-breasted roller, a white-bellied bustard and a Verreaux's eagle-owl on our night game drive.
Finally, we three species of reptile, including the Nile crocodile, mwanza flat-headed rock agama and tropical house geckos on our room's ceiling and walls at night.
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