Saturday 28^th Jan 2017

A nice lazy start with coffee/tea being delivered at 8:00 am to our tent. After the usual great breakfast, (I do hope this continues at home), we headed out to see the Hippo pool. This is back towards the airport and we noticed that there seemed to be more game around. We spotted some Banded Mongoose running around in packs as well as Slender Mongoose. The former are always in groups and if you see one, look for the others.

As the day was hotter than any previous a lot of the game is disinclined to move as much as normal. This meant that we could get a bit closer and Tamsin get some great shots of Impala, Thompson and Grants Gazelles as well as Warthog. There were larger groups of Wildebeest and Zebra as we got closer to the river Mara.

Getting out of the vehicle so that we could look down from the high banks we spotted a large Crocodile motionless below us. Further up river was a school of Hippos. This comprised some calves as well as mature adults. There was the usual grunting and positioning that we love about Hippos. One Hippo that David pointed out had some serious wounds that still shone red on its back and muzzle and were being pecked at by a Pied Warbler. He explained that this was from a Lion attack as Lions attack them at night when they’ve travelled far from the water in search of grass. Normally Lions don’t bother with Hippos, but young mature males will sometimes use them for practice or in the hope that they may get lucky. We moved downstream a bit where there was another school. I think Kepan had hoped that we might see Crocodiles attack Wildebeest as they came to drink on the bank. Fortunately all seemed quiet as we don’t really need to see nature raw in tooth and nail.

As it was now very hot we started to head back towards camp. Along the way we came across two Lionesses from the Acacia pride lazing around, as cats do, under a tree. They looked well fed and not up to much so we continue after some photos. As we crossed a dry river bed we found a pair of Maribou Storks. These must be some of the ugliest and most disgusting creatures on the planet with some delightful habits. One of these is that they shit on their legs as some form of temperature control! Tamsin took some good shots of these as you could clearly see one of their air sacks that they use for high altitude flying on the hind neck. Having said all that they are part of the vulture clean-up crew that is necessary in the bush.

We decided to go out later as we getting a bit of Safari fatigue. We drove around a bit with Tamsin taking some photos of raptors. At one point we came across a troop of Baboons. Some of the females were in season and the dominant male seemed half prepared for some hanky-panky!

A bit later we came  across some of the cubs from the Offbeat pride. Initially we thought this group also contained “Lucky”, but on close examination it didn’t. Without him the others were relaxed and only indulging in gentle play. We eventually found him lower down with one of the other missing cubs. We hung around for a while, but no Lionesses turned up and not much seemed to be happening.  We returned to camp and sat around the fire talking with Mike, Sue, Jesse and Chania.