circle of life…
sorry for the delay, been bogged down in work here at home after being away… ok, back to tanzania…
we have now given up our breakfast hour so that we can get out onto the road even earlier. there is so much to see in this woodland, where we are camped on the edge of a lake, that we gladly take a snack on the road and head on out to see what we can find. we wrap ourselves up in our kikoys, african scarves, grab our camera gear and binoculars, and head out in the cool dawn to the short grass plains…
we drive through herds of wildebeast, zebras, giraffes and ellies, stopping for a bit but knowing that our ultimate goal is to try and find some cheetah. if we get out to the plains early enough, we may find some who are up and about and may be hunting.
cheetahs are beautiful creatures… they move with a grace and stealth that is singular to their breed. we have seen one other cheetah so far up near nasera rock, but in these plains we are told there are many. we hope to see them hunting as they chase down their prey reaching speeds fo 60 miles per hour in as little as sixty seconds…
i spot all kids of cheetah in my haste to see one… being told each time by our guide that no, that is not a cheetah, it is a tommy gazelle, or it is a hyena…after a few hours i get those two animals down pat!
driving around all morning, seeing all sorts of new creatures like serval cats and wild african cats, but no cheetahs on this drive…we head back to camp for our lunch…stopping at each watering hole to see if we can catch the ellies coming down for their noontime drink…
as we are all anxious to get back out to the plains to find the cheetahs, we make short work of lunch and make plans to leave camp again by 3:30…barely enough time to sneek in an afternoon siesta, but too excited to sleep anyway…if the cheetahs were not hunting in the morning, chances are they will be out at dusk!
tusker beers hold us over as we rumble along back out to the plains…on dirt tracks a few miles seems like 100…it takes us about one hour to get back out to the plains of the morning…where within fifteen minutes francesco has spotted a mother cheetah and her three cubs! they are loping across the plains in a single file line…. so graceful and beautiful.
out on the plains there exist herds of wildebeest following their yearly migration through this area… at this time, there is plenty of food for all predators as many wildebeest get seperated from the herds…it is soon apparent that the mother cheetah has spotted a baby wildebeest who is out on its own, lost from the herds…she leaves her cubs behind, seemingly giving them a directive to stay put for a bit, and starts to stalk the wildebeest. within minutes, she is chasing it down, running at amazing speeds, shifting into what i call fifth gear to get the final sprint toward capture and kill of the wildebeest. watching a cheetah run like this is something that is indescribable. i have watched many chases and kills on animal planet, but seeing it live, out in the open plains, is spectacular!
the cubs come racing up to mom to see what she has got… she gives them space to try to “open” their dinner as she recovers from her efforts, and frequently checks the area for any threats… we spend about 2 hours with them as they eat their meal…
we get lucky enough on this safari to see three cheetah kills… we saw a mother at nasera rock hunt twice in the space of fifteen minutes, this hunt described above, and in the next few days we will get to watch three brothers chase down a teenage wildebeest…it is nothing short of awesome to have had the opportunity to see these animals in their space doing what they do to survive…awesome!
as i think back on our day while sitting around the campfire, watching everyone eat ribs, like the carnivores that we are, and wondering how they could after watching the cubs and the carcass for hours…i am reminded how this is just how it is… it is the circle of life here in eastern africa…the circle of life.
