Kenya Stop #2, Ol Pejeta Camp, Aug 28th
Yesterday's sunrise was such a smashing success that we were all enthused about another one. We didn't find quite as dramatic a setting as yesterday, but it was still beautiful.
After that, we headed out to the plains. First we had to cross the river. It came with this warning.
I really enjoy that sort of thing. This little bit of cleverness brought to you by Ol Pejeta.
As we drove around looking for the first big thing of the day, we came across these fellows, just waiting for something to die.
Not all that far down the road, we found that their brothers fondest wish had been fulfilled.
About now, please allow me to set the stage. Do you happen to recall our first day out at Inyati in South Africa? We saw a leopard mother and cub, frolicking on a rock by the riverbed. It was awesome. And John said to all of us "I don't see how you can top this".
Since then we've seen a leopard kill hung in the tree, hippos and elephants of all manner, lions on the prowl and rhino crashes galore. We've often said "I don't see how you can top this".
Get ready. Its time for the Day of the Jackal.
We saw jackal on the high plains, lurking around, running in funny patterns. Duma was excited about their behavior and took off for a jackal den that he knew of. We could see the 3 cubs bounding around the den, but no adults. Then off to the left (10 o'clock on our cruiser based clock) we saw the father approaching.
He's inbound with an impala leg. Breakfast boys and girls !
The pups love this idea and they greet him with gusto. Apparently, at some ages of a jackal pup's life, the parent feeds them by regurgitating their food. At later ages, the pups eat from the carcass directly. These pups must be "on the border". But for the sake of your stomach, I'll skip straight to the main course.
While the kids are munching away, Duma spots Mama coming in from 300-500 meters away. She also looks a bit odd.
Oh wow, would you look at that? She's carrying the impala's head !! But evidently she thinks she might have been spotted by a bigger predator. So, she buries it in the ground and nonchalantly walks away, hoping that the predator follows her and not the impala head. (side note: this must be a delicacy at the jackal den).
Now, this last part goes unphotographed due to the distance, the distraction of the hungry pups and the warthogs that are hanging around. An eagle has evidently been watching and zooms in when mama jackal leaves and takes off with the impala head. Seriously, you can't make this stuff up. At which point, Duma, who has been a bit of a wit, comes up with "Father is going to be quite disappointed. She only had one job and she lost the head." Maybe you had to be there, but it was well received in the truck, I assure you.
We hung out with the jackals for quite some time and it never got old. In fact, at the end of the day over dinner, when the foursome re-calibrated the animal popularity index, jackals had moved up 11 notches, from "I didn't know what a jackal was" to "that was so cool, I really like jackals".
We broke for lunch and a rest from our early departures. I caught up somewhat on my blogging during the down time and then we went back out for another GAME DRIVE. John and Sue went on their own drive, taking a private and separate Lion Search. We decided to just go with Duma.
Duma spent the first part of the drive exploring the high ground, where we saw rhino. This crash was huge and slightly spread out. What would you expect? 13 rhino take up a lot of real estate. I could only get 5 of them in a single picture
Next was an intermingled herd of cape buffalo, zebra and eland. They wandered through a mud hole, but no one wallowed in it. I was prepared to catch that, but no dice. Duma said that is evidence that they are physically stressed by the drought. They had flies and ticks on their bodies, birds feasting on the above and didn't want to wallow in the mud to protect themselves because they were too weak to be sure they would get back up.
Other trucks were following us all over the high plain, so we just went to a spot where there was only a little bit to watch. Duma knew that he was being followed and didn't want to lead the whole cavalcade of trucks on our next stop. After 30 minutes of nothing special, they all gave up and we were alone on the savannah. We began to move and there was some sense that we were being followed, so Duma flew down the road and made a quick turn into the bush, losing our paparazzie. It was brilliant and they never found us.
A few more turns and he hit paydirt! At 5:30, the day changed from The Day of the Jackal to The Night of the Lions. Duma found the pride that we saw yesterday, complete with 2 large males, 2 adult females and 4 cubs.
Duma estimated the cubs' age at 3 months. The cubs were nursing when we arrived.
Once fed, the cubs began to explore and wrestle. Each activity led to the other and they proceeded to gambol around the glade. We knew we were having a truly special experience when Duma took out his phone and was doing as much video as we were.
Eventually the other adults began to wake up. Estimate total time from arrival to adult males waking at 25 minutes.
From here, the pride decided to go out and explore. The females led and the cubs and males followed. It was delightful to watch them. And we watched them completely by ourselves, since Duma's sneaky exit from the plain left all of the other trucks fooled. Here is a picture of the father's babysitting prowess.
And then we went for a night drive. The pictures are terrible, but we saw two big male lions fighting over a juvenile impala that they had just killed. Sue was embarrassed for them. Two massive lions killing one tiny impala. The the lions were totally at peace with it. The problem was they both wanted the whole carcass. We watched them for probably 45 minutes. They never did resolve the matter. They seemed like brothers, not willing to hurt each other, but also not willing to give an inch in the battle. I imagine that eventually the impala was divided, but not during our watch.
Finally, we saw an aardvark. They dig holes all over the savannah, looking for ants and termites. What I find odd about that is that aardvark holes are all over the place. Termite hills are all over the place. They don't seem to line up. Maybe ants are enough.
That ends our time at Ol Pejeta. If you are looking for another excellent destination, consider Ol Pejeta Bush Camp. We loved it.
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