Last Morning Game Drive, September 19th
Before we knew it September 19th had arrived and we departed on our last game drive early in the morning. As usual we had no idea what we might find. We were hoping to see another Leopard but it was not to be.
Before 7 AM we came across a baby elephant on the road looking very strange in its pose.
A very pretty Rufous-naped Lark.
Jeff is very serious about his photography as you can see. It is worth all the trouble he goes to as he gets excellent results. He has been to Africa eight or nine times with Joanna. In this photo he is setting up for a shot of the guides with and without Joanna.
A photo of our guides/drivers. On the left using my I-phone is James (my guide), middle is Paul and to the right is Peter. I think Paul and Peter were quite impressed on how heavy the cameras were with those large lenses.
Joanna with the guides.
After our picnic breakfast we came across zebras at the watering hole.
Thomson Gazelles are a major food source for predators and they rely on their speed to escape. Although they do have large horns, a gazelle prefers to run and leap away when it is being chased. They can reach speeds up to 60 MPH in short bursts and sustain speeds of 30 to 40 MPH.
As we were still near the Mara River we had been hoping for another opportunity to see the Wildebeest crossing the river but it didn't happen so we had to be content to see them grazing.
The Hammerhead Stork is best known for their compulsive nest building behaviour. This relatively small bird is known of rebuilding huge nests that are roughly 100 times the size of their weight.
Later in the morning we found another lion.
We were actually surprised that it didn't lie down and go to sleep as the lions usually do at this time of day. Instead it got up and started to walk away.
We watched it as it made its way closer to the wildebeest in the distance. We were actually very surprised that she was going to go after her prey on her own but we didn't see another lioness in the area. Normally they hunt together.
You can see that she is getting closer. We were actually quite far away but we could still see what was going on in the distance.
You can barely see the lioness in the distance as she approached her prey.
Now she was really starting to make her move. We had been watching for about an hour.
Getting closer and closer. Did I really want to see this?
In fact I was pretty far away and couldn't see nearly as much as the camera saw.
You can barely see but the wildebeest is pulling away at the last minute. With relatively small hearts and lungs lions are not fast runners. They have a maximum speed of 60 kph and they do not have the stamina to keep this speed up for more than 100-200 m. So lions rely on stalking their prey and seldom charge until they are within 30m, unless the prey is facing away and cannot see the charge. I was actually pretty relieved that this one had missed its target but then felt bad when Peter starting talking about how the cubs would go hungry.
Most successful hunts are on dark nights in dense cover against a single prey animal. Generally if a lion missed its target on the first run it usually abandons the chase.
With one last look, the lion started coming back towards the van again. Females do the majority of the hunting and males who tag along with the hunt usually stay back until a kill is made. Lions hunting in pairs and groups have a success rate of 30%. Lions hunting singly by daylight have a success rate of 17-19% . Of the 1,300 hunts observed in the Serengeti, 48% involved one lion, 20% involved two and the remainder involved a group of three or more.
Ok- now I was beginning to feel really badly for her but at the same time relieved that the wildebeest had been spared. One reason for lions' relatively low hunting success rate is that lions do not take into account wind direction when hunting; they often approach prey from an upwind direction thereby alerting the prey and ending the hunt. Secondly, the lion's charge is generally launched directly at its quarry and it rarely alters the path of attach, as do other cats.
She stopped to have a rest before going to find her cubs.
Another rest.
Finally she got up and we watched her slink away in the grasses to find her cubs.
A grey backed Fiscal.
Just as we were arriving back at the lodge Peter stopped the van so I could get a shot at this hyrax sitting on the rock.