Thursday 26^th Jan 2017

We had decided to go to the weekly market in the local town this morning. It’s mixture of cattle market and fruit/veg – should be interesting?

On the way there we spotted a few more birds to be noted in our bird book before going back to look for the Leopard. We stopped and look for a while before heading the village via the camp. Along the way we spotted a Cheetah in long grass. Not a great spot as it seemed to have bedded down to later when they become active. Maybe we will revisit that later. The trip to the village took longer than expected, but in reality was probably less than 10km total and the terrain slowed us.

We parked up and followed David as he explained what was going on. The market has some order in that the sold animals are marked with a blue cross and transactions are between the individual owners and buyers. Kapen was supposed to be watching our things in the truck but walked off into the crowds. David explained that he was going to buy a cow as it was a good time of year to buy them. Cattle are like the Masai bank/investments as if you buy the right cow and feed it up during the rainy season it will be worth more. They also use an app called Mpesa to buy and sell things. This is an African solution to the lack of banks in rural and remote areas as well as for micro funding. It uses credits stored on the app on your smart phone, which everyone seems to have and you text credit to one another - simple.

The fruit/veg market was interesting as the main product seems to be sweet potatoes, potatoes and cabbage. David explained that the Masai are herders rather than growers, but that the neighbouring tribe are growers, hence the market each week. I suspect there’s a market somewhere in the area each day – not unlike home. We didn’t find anything to buy but enjoyed the ambience.

On the way back David took a short cut as we needed to be back for lunch. As we crossed a plain I noticed a Lion and mentioned it. It was a Lioness heading into shrub. Kapen and David noticed some more male Lions in another area closeby. These are the outcast male Lions that are about 1 year old and no longer part of the pride. They all seemed well fed and content so went to look at a young Elephant that was lying down. This was using a termite mound as headrest. Eventually it got up and Mum shielded it with its trunk. As we started to move away we noticed that some Zebra with a small herd of Wildebeest was walking toward where the Lions were. In amongst the Wildebeests was a new born. So we parked up to see what would happen. The Wildebeest with the calf was of no interest to the male Lions however, the Zebra were getting close to the Lioness. As the last Zebra past the Lionesses hiding pace she decided to have a go. This also attracted the attention of the males. Fortunately the Zebra remained unscathed.

During the evening drive we saw a Water Buck, our first and probably only one for this trip. Soon after we picked up on the two dominant males of the “offbeat” pride, Frank and Jesse, walking towards the river and a drinking hole. We decided to follow them and see what came up. As we parked up we realised that just behind us were some of the females of the “Offbeat” pride. We couldn’t get great view of the two males drinking as other vehicles had got there before us. However we were rewarded by the cubs appearing in front of us including “Lucky” the adopted cub. We watched them all gambol and play for a while during this time Kepan noticed that the mother of two younger cubs had left the other females and disappeared towards where the other cubs had appeared. David said that we might get to see the younger cubs. Some of the other vehicles took off to look for other viewings.

 We continued to look for birds and the Pygmy Kingfisher in particular. Although we saw some Tamsin didn’t get a great shot, but she did of other birds. Our patience/luck was rewarded with regard to the lion cubs as we watched the mother and her two cubs appear from the drinking place. The younger cubs were a bit nervous of the vehicles, but as Mum was okay they followed. She lay on a bank below the other lionesses and cubs and we watched the cubs frolic and play. Suddenly a small flock of doves flew low overhead which startled all the Lions. This was followed by another sound that caused the mother to suddenly bound up the bank towards the others. The consequence of this was that one of the youngsters was tossed in the air!  Fortunately it wasn’t hurt, but had become separated from its sibling and Mum. After some uncertainty and calls they were reunited.

After all that excitement Tamsin managed to get some photos of a Pygmy Kingfisher. We headed away from the camp. Eventually we saw a fire burning in the distance and drove towards it and our sun-downer. The other couple still in camp, Mike and Sue, turned up a bit later and apologised as they had been delayed by watching a Cheetah attempting to hunt. This we think was the Cheetah we had spotted laid up in the long grass earlier that day.