REPORTING DATE.13.01.2012

Nearly everywhere in the northern Serengeti nowadays, herds of elephants have taken over the fields after the departure of the wildebeests back to the south. On this day, ranger Deus and his guests came  upon a big herd feeding on some lush green grass. In the middle of the herd was a big tusker which took concern of the vehicle as she was the matriarch.

Reporting Date: 10/01/2012

Elephants are social and intelligent parchyderms. The young ones are born and learn from the cow and the rest of the family's survival techniques. The young ones after birth have to wait for 6 months before starting to use the trunk otherwise, they whirl it at anything moving around it including butterflies, birds etc.

Daniel and his guests while on a gamedrive came across a cow a youngone nearly 4 months old playing around with its trunk.

REPORTING DATE; 09.01.2012

Two slender cats.

On a sunny afternoon, a mother cheetah and her older cub were spotted on a small termite mound sharing a very small shade which was not big to give enough protection from the sun. With the absence of any other predator, they were completely relaxed and appeared well fed to the extend that they did not even bother to look in the direction of some antelopes that were about 200 meters away. After some times, the mother casually walked away from the cub to change position. It seems the cub would soon become independent of the mother as they were almost of the same height level.

Reporting Date: 08/01/2012.

Hyaenas are commonly seen during daylight and are highly opportunistic, scavenging and killing at any time of day or night if the opportunity arises. Today on a fullday gamedrive Alex and his four guests came across a family of hyeanas just outside their den.

They are usually found in clans consisting of adult females and their offsprings together with a number of unrelated males. The young are born throughout the year and females usually gives birth to two cubs in an abandoned aadvark or warthog burrow, generally with a narrow entrance to prevent predators inside the den.

Reporting Date: 07.01.2012

The secretary bird is considered a bird of prey, but unlike the others, it spends most of its time on the ground. In the Serengeti grasslands, game-drives are incomplete without the sighting of these birds. Their main prey are rodents, snakes and insects. They  are very efficient hunters which use their feet as  a major tool to kill their prey.

Reporting Date: 05/01/2012.

Now that the wildebeest have gone back to the Serengeti life has become tough for the lions. Lions are working extra hard to find prey and when they get lucky in making a kill they make sure nothing is left.

Today while on game-drive Martin and his guests came across a pride of lions feeding on a coke's hartebeest carcass. Normally lions would not eat all the hard bones but to Martin and his guests suprise they watched a lioness chew on the bones. It was as though she was still hungry but didnt have a choice. She also got very agressive whenever any other lion tried to get close.

Reporting Date: 04.01.2012

On a morning game drive, our spotter Yusuf saw a young  leopard on top of a huge rock, it had chosen a good spot to have a view of the vast Serengeti plains. The guests were amazed to see a young leopard barely five months old climbing up onto the rocky hill with the swiftness and agility of a monkey without falling. After a little while, he climbed down and went into the bushes below. It was the same cub that was previously seen walking with his mother.

Reporting Date: 03/01/2012.

Cheetahs normally do most of their hunting at dawn and dusk so as to avoid heat exhaustion.

Today Peter and his guests were out on a fullday gamedrive with a mission of getting to Talek river to go see some hippos. On arrival at the hippo point at around noon they noticed alot of commotion on the other side of the river. After scanning the grassy plains they noticed a cheetah trying to hunt some thompson gazelle. It took a while to get across the river but interesting enough she had just made a kill. They watched her feed for a while then continued with their gamedrive.

It was unusual to see the cheetah active during the heat of the day, maybe it was due the difficulty in finding prey do to presence of long grass all over the mara plains

Reporting Date: 01.01.2012

For the last 3 days these two leopards were seen in the same area climbing back and forth the same tree. This was the fourth day running and the 'love birds' were still at it, only this time the male seemed tired and was not interested at all on the act. For the whole half an hour we spent watching them parched on a Desert date tree, the female tried frantically to arouse the male but alas, he wouldn't bulge. We gave up and left, but the impression they left on us was that the mating ritual is similar to the rest of the cats except for the fact that they mate also up on trees. There is no particular breeding season for leoipards. They breed at any time of the year. When a female leopard is ready to breed, she will be in heat for 3 - 7 weeks until she becomes pregnant. The heat lasts 2 - 3 days each time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSpOsuz56_0 

REPORTING;01.01.2012…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Bull elephant blocks the road.

A solitary bull elephant near the sand river had refused to move away from our road. He flapped his ears and then shook his head in a threatening display. He did not like our presence as we spoiled his solitude. Because animals have a right of way, we changed direction and he became relaxed then slowly started to walk away.