Out onto the savannah of the conservancy to watch the sunrise. In the cool dawn twilight, the shadows of the scrub forests of thorny Acacia trees soon gave way to the infinite views and wide-open spaces of the heavily grazed grasslands. The short grass and absence of shrubs provided no cover for the vast numbers of grazing gazelles, zebras, and wildebeest, but it instead proves to be a great advantage to the prey by failing to provide much cover for a stalking predator.
As the dawn light grew stronger on the horizon, we were lucky enough to see one of the more elusive predators on the savannah, the bat-eared fox. This little nocturnal fox is a bit smaller than our North American gray fox but with huge oversized bat-like ears which give the species its name. With those big ears, it can hear the stirrings of its favorite prey, termites and other invertebrates, deep underground. Once prey is located, it uses its well-developed claws and stout forefeet to dig them out.
We entered Masai Mara National Park by 8AM and found the Marsh Pride lions again, this time in the tall grass near the road. Most were sleeping, barely twitching, with fat, full bellies that told of their recent successful hunt. The big male with a dark full mane stirred in his sleep and rolled over just along side the remnants of their kill, a baby Cape buffalo. Just yesterday we had seen Cape buffalos successfully defending a calf. The lions apparently had returned and this time they were successful. The dance of predator and prey, of life and death continues with each day.
The big male lion slowly rose to his feet, reached out his two front paws, lowered his shoulders and slowly, in a posture known to any domestic cat lover, he stretched hard, long, and ever so luxuriously. He turned toward us, considered us for a moment with sleepy eyes, and easily dragged the 200 pound carcass of the baby buffalo farther into the grass.
We later watched a pair of silver - backed jackals cautiously work their way into a group of Thompson’s Gazelles. Twice before on this trip we had seen jackals take newborn Tommys so we waited and watched, and wondered about the outcome. The Tommys spotted the hunting jackals and two adults female gazelles, put their heads down, aimed their little 6-inch horns towards the intruders and charged at full speed. The jackals knew it was a good time to retreat and came running at full blast out of the grass at the side of the road with the gazelles racing close behind and closing. The jackals nearly ran under our truck to escape and the gazelles having safely defended their babies stopped short of the truck by a few yards and watched intently, stomping and pawing at the ground as the jackals trotted off into the grass at the other side of the road and disappeared.
After a fine bush lunch we spent the rest of the day photographing what ever came our way during our travels: baboons, Maasai giraffe, Kori bustard, secretary birds, Cape buffalo, augur eagle, elephant, ring-necked dove, spotted hyena, silver-backed jackal, crowned crane, black-breasted snake eagles, a variety of vultures, elephants, banded mongoose, Vervet monkey, lilac-breasted roller, gray-backed shrike, and the now commonplace, almost ignored, assortment of pipits, longclaws, larks, plovers, gazelles, impala, zebras, topi, and wildebeest.
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