Kenya Travelogue

[Kyle Jones]

Originally posted on my website at www.imageskylejones.com and reproducing here.

I spent the last ten days of July this year in Kenya for my second African safari. My first was in Botswana in 2022 (read about it here) and as much as I truly enjoyed the experience, I never expected to return to Africa. After a couple of years, though, the long flights began to fade into memory and the allure of once again being up close with some of the world's most amazing animals took hold. Kenya provided the opportunity to visit somewhere new, see some of the animals I had missed in Botswana (notably cheetah and rhinoceros), and observe the Great Migration as huge herds of wildebeest, zebra, and gazelles travel across the savannah looking for fresh places to graze.



Introduction and Planning

I began planning the trip with my usual photography partner Alejandro Velarde in 2025. We decided to time our trip to coincide with the Mara River crossing in July/August as the wildebeest migration makes its way north into Kenya. We also decided to limit the number of parks/camps that we would visit. This would help us spend less time packing and changing locations and more time on game drives. We eventually added two additional friends, Jose Luis Rodriguez Morales and Michael Mynatt to help share the experience and some of the costs.

With those basic plans in mind we started working on how to actually book this thing. When we went to Botswana, we followed the recommendation of a friend to hire a company that took care of everything for a camping safari. Botswana is a sparsely populated country that doesn't see the heavy crowds that visit places like Kenya and Tanzania. Kenya has a large number of permanent "camps" both within its national parks as well as in private conservancies. The camps feature dining and spa areas (depending on what you pay) and you can sleep in actual buildings or in tents that provide electricity and hot/cold running water. Camp fees can include morning and evening safaris and you can spend extra for a private vehicle.

We decided that we wanted to book through a single company that would manage the camp reservations, logistics, travel, vehicle and guides. After contacting several companies, we ended up booking through Ways of Africa Travel. Paul Sanare worked with us closely to arrange exactly what we wanted at a very reasonable price. He also provided us with two excellent guides: Surat Nur took care of us for the first portion of our trip and Frank on Safari took care of the rest. Both guides showed an excellent ability to anticipate the behavior of animals and put us in good positions for photos.

We flew from San Francisco to Nairobi, spending our first night in a hotel in the city. We were met by Surat the next morning who drove us to Lake Nakuru National Park where we'd be spending two nights. After that we drove to the Maasai Mara National Reserve where we spent the rest of our trip. This first post covers our time at Lake Nakuru and I'll write a second post covering our time in the Mara.

My primary gear for the trip was a Canon R5II with a Canon EF 500mm f/4 lens and a Panasonic S1RII with a LUMIX 70-200mm f/2.8 lens. I decided for this trip I wanted to focus on fast lenses that would perform well in low light and give me great control over my depth of field. I also brought a 1.4x extender for each system as well as a LUMIX 24-60mm f/2.8 lens for landscape and camp photos. For most of the trip I just used the sandbags provided by our guides for support and didn't mess with either the monopod or tripod I had brought. Unless you are planning to shoot photographs at night, neither is really necessary for a Kenyan safari.

Lake Nakuru National Park

Lake Nakuru is a shallow alkaline lake located in Kenya's Rift Valley about 100 miles north of Nairobi. It is known for its diverse bird population, rare Rothschild's giraffes, and as the best place to be able to see both black and while rhinoceros up close. The rhino population is why it was on my priority list to visit. Lake levels have been rising recently, flooding some of the park infrastructure and causing its previously large population of flamingos to move elsewhere. The flooding makes it impossible to completely circumnavigate the lake, increasing the time it takes to complete game drives to some locations.

We stayed at the Egret Savannah Camp (formerly Flamingo Hill Tented Camp) and were completely happy with the facility. We were greeted with fresh juice and shown to our tents. Each tent had two beds with mosquito netting, a patio, and a permanent structure with a full bathroom and shower. Each tent has electricity and hot/cold running water and WiFi is available in the main building. The camp serves buffet meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner and will pack a lunch if you have an all-day safari. The grounds are well manicured and include a swimming pool, which I never had a chance to use. With the flooding of the lake, though, the camp's location requires a long (1-1/2 hour) drive to reach some of the nicer areas of the park that could previously have been reached with a short drive. With that said, some of our best wildlife sightings were just a short drive from the camp.

We began seeing wildlife even before we reached the camp to check in. Two white rhinoceros were grazing near the road with only one other vehicle nearby.



The rhinos paid no attention to us and eventually moved close enough that I was able to capture a head-on image from right next to the vehicle before our safari really even started.



After checking in and having lunch, we started our afternoon safari. We began driving around the lake, stopping to photograph some of the many pelicans near the shore. It was hypnotizing to watch them swim, all moving in unison including ducking their heads under water at the same time for food.



We spotted a lion in a tree not far from our camp, a behavior that is somewhat unique to Nakuru.



As we circled the lake we observed an African fish eagle that was enjoying a fish on top of a dead tree, I liked that because the road was elevated at that point, I was able to keep my camera horizontal while photographing the eagle, creating a more personal view than aiming up into a tree.



I had photographed impalas in Botswana, but wasn't happy with any of my shots. I found this male taking care of his ladies near the road and he gave me a nice pose.



Groups of female impalas have one male that protects them and mates with them. The males fight for that position, with the losers either staying alone or hanging out with other males. Each time we passed a lone male or a group of males, our guide called out "losers".



We spent much of the late afternoon watching a small pride of lions that had recently caught and eaten a warthog. They were next to the road under some bushes, which made photography challenging but it was still interesting to watch. A large male was sleeping on his back across the road while the adult females were sleeping next to the kill. Several cubs alternated between nursing, playing, and nibbling at the warthog.

Lake Nakuru is home to a population of Rothschild's giraffes, which are critically endangered with only 4000 remaining in the wild. They have beautiful coloring and distinctive white legs. As sunset approached, I took advantage of the forest landscape as the background for the image below as well as the image of the cape buffalo and zebras at the top of this post.

 

[Kyle Jones]

We were off early the next morning for our one full day of exploring Lake Nakuru. The camp was nice enough to make some breakfast and coffee available before their posted breakfast time and packed us lunch for later. Our plan was to look for black rhinos, who are both more rare than their white rhino cousins and more shy. As activity increases in the park during the day they tend to retreat into the bush. As we made the long drive around the lake to a location where they are commonly observed, we made a few stops to take advantange of the light.



The rising water levels have killed trees along the shoreline, producing scenes like the one above all around the lake. The original main entrance to the park is also underwater. We also stopped for the occasional interesting bird, including the yellow-billed stork below.



Baboons are common in the park, often moving along the road and filling the trees in the evening. I most enjoyed watching mothers with infants, seemingly just tolerating their unruly passengers.



When the sun rose above the surrounding hills, it provided some nice light on the trees across the lake.



Not having found any black rhinos, we started making our way toward an area where pelicans congregate. We stopped for photos of zebra, buffalo, and giraffes along the way.









A large population of great white pelicans hunt for fish in Lake Nakuru. We stopped in an area along the lake shore where they congregate and found some flamingos as well. In this first image I tried to take advantage of the flamingos walking in front of the pelicans. In the second image, I captured more of the background trees.






We had lunch in a campground near Makalia Falls. This gave me an opportunity to photograph some of the small birds in the area, like this weaver, and watch monkeys in the nearby trees.



We visited Kenya during the dry season, and one result of that was not having much water flowing over Makalia Falls. I took a few photos in between the busses from school field trips. At least I found a use for my landscape lens and ND filter!



I upgraded my Canon R5 camera for this trip, buying the R5II to replace it. Benefits of the new camera for this trip included a better autofocus system, a faster sensor readout speed allowing me to shoot at higher frame rates without getting weird bending wings/limbs, and pre-capture. Pre-capture starts recording when I press the shutter half-way and then writes the last half second worth of images to my card when I fully press the shutter. That helps me to avoid missing action like the take-off of this lilac-breasted roller.



We had a close encounter with a Rothschild's giraffe while making our way back through the forest. This one distracted us while another walked right up to our car on the other side.






We saw our first ostriches as we started the drive back toward our camp. The male ostrich has black feathers and the female's are grey. We saw more ostriches in the Mara over the following week but I didn't take any photos.









We watched this hippo walk out of the lake and take a drink from a puddle in the middle of the road. I took some photos but didn't really care for the background. As if it knew, it then walked up onto this little hill with a beautiful forest forming a perfect backdrop.



The overcast day turned into light rain, which was nice for reducing the amount of dust on the road. I had been warned about the dust in Kenya and it was true. Each time another vehicle passed in the other direction we got a light showering of fine dust. This is one benefit of having two cameras. I was able to keep a long prime lens on one and a short zoom on the other, allowing me to react to what I saw without having to change lenses in the dust.

After looking around the lake all day, we finally spotted a black rhino near our camp. Black rhinos have a different mouth structure than white rhinos. This, along with their smaller size, is the easiest way to tell them apart. White rhinos are grazers and have a wide mouth and lips. Black rhinos have a more pointed mouth that helps them eat leaves off of trees and bushes. As our guide noted, "I don't know why they call them black or white, they are all grey". I think there is a life lesson in there somewhere.



We then spotted two white rhinos as well, both caked in mud.



That is when the fun started. I'd have been happy with the rhino photos I'd already gotten over the two days: a nice close-up next to the car and some clear shots of a black rhino. But now I had a chance to see a fight between a white and black, capturing both animals in the same frame. It wasn't a violent fight, as the larger white rhino mostly just pushed its smaller opponent around.



After a break for another mud bath, the two white rhinos started a more evenly matched fight right by our car, eventually pushing each other across the road.



On our way back to camp I took a few photos of some eland in the twilight light. The eland is the largest and slowest running antelope.



I moved the following photo to the bottom of this post, even though it was one of the first images I captured as I figured that not everyone would appreciate it. These two warthogs were having a tender moment.



We made it back to camp, had a nice dinner, and packed to get ready for our drive to the Maasai Mara the next morning. I'll be writing about the Mara in my next post.

 

[Kyle Jones]

I spent most of the time during my recent Kenyan safari in the Maasai Mara. The Mara is one of Africa's premier wildlife locations, famous for its vast savannah with opportunities to see huge herds of animals and the predators that hunt them. We timed our trip to create an opportunity to see Wildebeest cross the Mara River as part of the "Great Migration" and included a full week in the Mara to increase our chances of seeing some hunting. Unlike most of my posts, I am grouping pictures by subject rather than trying to give a day-by-day trip report.



The Mara in Kenya and the Serengeti in Tanzania form one large ecosystem in eastern Africa. In the Maa language of the Maasai people, "Mara" means spotted, referring to the landscape being spotted with trees. Serengeti means endless for its larger, more barren plains.



Animals (and people) use the trees in the Mara for shade in the heat of the day. The landscape is also crossed by several rivers, such as the one below. These provide habitats for hippopotamus and crocodiles as well as foliage for leopards and birds.



People often visit Kenya for "the Great Migration", just as I did. Generally, what they really mean is they want to see wildebeest crossing the Mara River as they move from Tanzania into Kenya. As it turns out, the great migration isn't a single event, but rather it is a continuous movement of over 1.2 million wildebeest along with hundreds of thousands of zebras and gazelles circling between Tanzania and Kenya in search of fresh grass. The animals move in a clockwise pattern moving north in April and May and then back south in November and December. Calving season takes place in the Serengeti from January to March and mating season takes place on the way north from May to June. With this in mind, opportunities to see the vast herds of wildebeest exist year round, you just have to go where they are at the time of your visit.

Crossings of the Mara River peak from July to September. Large groups of wildebeest tentatively approach the river, facing crocodiles and other predators, eventually making a push across the water. I timed my trip for late July and included a week in the Mara to give myself some time to see this iconic event. As it turned out, I was able to witness a river crossing - but also was able to see massive numbers of wildebeest and zebra across the savannah.



For this part of our journey we stayed at the Mara Crossings Luxury Camp. This was a much more wild experience than our previous lodging in Lake Nakuru. Even the road into the camp is rough - they have left the rocks in place to help withstand the water during the rainy season. The camp is situated next to the Mara River, with a large, comfortable deck for drinking, relaxing and dining.

Tents are large and comfortable. Mine had two double beds with mosquito netting, chairs, a desk, and a charging station, a separate room for a third bed, and a bath area with two sinks, a shower, and a toilet. The staff managed the mosquito netting and kept us stocked with clean towels and supplies throughout our trip.

We had a nice view of the Mara River from the deck, frequently seeing hippos and crocodiles along with occasional mongoose and baboons. The hippos would serenade us to sleep and night, while also leaving the river to graze - often wandering through camp. We could walk freely through camp during the day, but at night we needed a Maasai escort to go to/from our tents. It became clear why a couple of nights into our stay, when we saw a hippo behind one tent that started moving toward mine as I was headed there. The escort started waving his light at the hippo and banging sticks, with other Maasai joining in until the hippo moved off. Elephants also wandered through camp at night.



We visited a Maasai village on our way to the airport at the end of the trip. A tribal elder takes a donation when you arrive, and then they put on a performance including singing, fire-making, and jumping before showing visitors around their homes. The visit ends with an opportunity to buy crafts with the funds helping to support their school. This is obviously done for the tourists and is definitely staged, but it is a good way to learn about the Maasai culture and help them financially.



Cheetahs

There were three things I particularly wanted to see on this trip: rhinos, a wildebeest river crossing, and cheetahs. I had success with both black and white rhinos in Lake Nakuru and you can see photos of them in my previous post here. I'll talk about wildebeest a little further down in this post. As far as cheetahs go, our guide had made it clear they could be a challenge. The population is not large, with something like 30-40 adult cheetahs living in the reserve, and the population is at risk. As it turned out, we had multiple excellent sightings during our trip and I was able to see several cheetah hunts as they chased both wildebeest and Thomson's gazelles.

We were fortunate enough to get word of a nearby cheetah on our first full day in the Mara. We joined several other vehicles watching the cheetah make its way through the grass, moving up hill toward a large group of wildebeest and zebras. I excitedly snapped a bunch of photos, not sure if this would be my only opportunity to see a cheetah. As it turned out, we ended up tracking this cheetah for several hours, culminating in a failed attempt to chase down a wildebeest. At one point the cheetah climbed a tree to get a better view of the area, mark its territory, and rest a little bit. The photo below was my favorite, showing the cat in a perfect pose on the tree with a clear view of the grassy Mara landscape.



As I noted above we watched the cheetah make its way up a hill, frequently stopping on termite mounds for a better view. Cheetahs can spot prey up to 5km away and the little bit of elevation they gain on a termite mound or tree helps them to find something to eat. The photo below is another favorite, showing the flexibility of the cheetah as it scopes out the area.



Our guide did an excellent job of anticipating where the cheetah would move, and putting us in positions where we could sit and wait for the animal to move into the scene. This allowed us to set up nice compositions and get close to the cat without having to chase it.



The image below is a closer view of the cheetah on the tree at the top of the hill. From here it moved into some nearby brush and rested for a couple of hours as a herd of wildebeest slowly moved into the area.



We watched as many wildebeest walked by the cheetah's location, including several seemingly unaccompanied young that looked like easy prey. Clearly they don't follow the same logic that I would for choosing a target. After a couple of hours most of the herd had passed the cheetah's location, and then suddenly it made an appearance and took off after a young wildebeest. Unfortunately it was too far away and the hunt was not successful.



While cheetahs are the fastest animals on Earth, they can only hold their top speed in small bursts - up to about 300 meters. They need to be be close enough to their prey to catch it within that distance or else it will have to give up and rest before trying again somewhere else. That is what happened in this case where the cat returned to a shady area and we moved on as well.



Cheetahs are relatively small compared to lions and leopards and need to eat smaller meals. While the larger cats will catch a large animal and then not need to hunt for several days, cheetahs generally need to eat daily. The guides are able to tell by looking at the cat's belly whether it has recently eaten. If not, then you could expect it to attempt a hunt that day. Because that was a priority for us, we would spend hours watching cheetahs that looked hungry. That gave me plenty of time to look for nice poses in good light, like the photo below.



We tracked one cheetah for most of a day, as it moved from resting under a tree toward some nearby topi before eventually chasing and catching a Thomson's gazelle. One highlight was capturing some photos as it took a drink in a nearby creek.



We ended up seeing cheetahs everyday in the Mara, which was a real treat. I had the chance to watch them move through the savannah, rest, track and stalk prey, and take off running a few times.

 

[Kyle Jones]

Elephants

The Maasai Mara is probably not the best place to see large numbers of elephants. According to our guide, they don't like the noise made by wildebeest as they migrate and tend to avoid them. That said, they are around and are always impressive to watch.

As this was my second safari, I was trying to a few things to improve the quality of the images that I captured. This was based on both having learned some lessons from my first trip as well as the the knowledge that I already have photos I like so I didn't have to worry too much about missing something if an attempt didn't work. One thing I worked on was staying low, especially when photographing large animals close to the vehicle. A low angle makes them look larger and can be more compelling overall. Prior to the trip I modified my monopod so I could easily hang my camera outside the vehicle and near the ground, with my phone mounted on the base of the monopod so I could remotely compose images and control the camera. I only used this setup a couple of times, as it was unwieldy and took some time to put together, but it did work as expected.

We stopped at one point as a small group of elephants was approaching the road. I set up my "low shooting" rig and hung it out of the vehicle hoping one of the elephants would come close. I was able to track the scene on my phone and captured the image below with a nice twist of the trunk for emphasis. The elephant proceed to cross the road directly in front of us and I just enjoyed the view at that point.



On our last evening we found a group of elephants that had several large adult females with their young children.



The baby elephants are always fun to watch and photograph. They mimic the behaviors of the adults with both more energy and less skill.



This group resting under a tree made for a nice environmental photo in the late afternoon.



As the sun began to set, we decided to stay with the elephants and see if we could make good use of the light. I started by trying to isolate groups of elephants in front of the colorful sky.



I was eventually able to capture some silhouettes in front of the setting sun. In this image, a baby elephant was nursing at sunset.



This image was from a different occasion, as an elephant approached our vehicle during the mid-day.



Not an elephant, but we did manage to see a black rhino near our camp one afternoon.



Wildebeest Crossing

The opportunity to see the massive herds of wildebeest make their annual crossing of the Mara River draws large crowds to the Maasai Mara from July through September. This included me. Even though you can count on the wildebeest herds, there is no way to know exactly when or where they will attempt to cross the river. Groups of wildebeest will make their approach, and then may wait for days before actually crossing. Their being skittish is entirely reasonable, since lions, crocodiles and other predators are tracking them in addition to the humans.

Large groups of wildebeest, zebra, buffalo, antelope and gazelles are visible throughout the Mara at this time of year. The wildebeest tend to be accompanied by zebras as they graze and slowly move along the traditional route in search of food.



When they approach the river, safari vehicles join them. The vehicles park a short distance away to avoid spooking the animals and causing them to retreat. Several wildebeest may come to the shore and then turn away. On my visit, at one point, hundreds of wildebeest began running in the other direction before the actual crossing began. Once a few animals enter the water, the herd instinct kicks in and they all begin moving to cross.



At this point the safari vehicles converge on the rivers edge, each looking for a clear vantage point. The result is chaos, both in the water and surrounding it. We found a pretty good viewpoint where we could see both sides of the river and the mass of wildebeest climbing the hill on the other side to reach safety.



We did see one casualty. Once small wildebeest appeared to be stuck in the river and unable to move. It was soon attacked by a crocodile and dragged below the surface.

Birds

Interesting birds were less common in the Mara than they had been at Lake Nakuru and I didn't put much effort into photographing them. We did find a nice saddle-billed stork that posed for some pictures before flying off.





We stopped a few times to try our luck getting photos of lilac-breasted rollers as they took flight. The birds are really pretty even just sitting still, but they get even better when they open their wings. I have historically been really bad at getting pictures of birds when they start to fly. Usually they take off when I look away for some reason or adjust my position a little bit. I had some good luck on this trip and the equipment helped, taking advantage of the half-second pre-capture on my camera. I'd see the bird start to move, fully depress the shutter, and I'd have several frames that were exactly what I was looking for. The only times I struggled were when the bird chose to fly down instead of up or the direction it was facing.







We saw several wildebeest carcasses on the savannah (I coined the phrase "wildeceased") that were usually attended by African vultures. These are more attractive than the versions we have in California, but I struggled to get good photos due to the chaos around the kill.



Lions, Leopards and Cats

We had seen a few lions in Lake Nakuru but I knew we'd have more and better opportunities to observe and photograph them in the Mara. We ended up being able to see prides hunt, feed, play, mate, and generally behave like the big cats that they are.

This handsome fellow walked toward our vehicle in the morning light, giving me a chance to create a nice portrait against the grass. Even though I have been close to adult lions on safari before, it always brings up your heart rate when they almost get close enough to touch.



On our first evening in the Maasai Mara we visited a site where a pride was feeding on a hippo. What was special to me was that there were four young cubs in the pride. I wasn't able to get a clean shot of them in the evening - there were a lot of vehicles around and they mostly stayed in the grass. We returned before sunrise the next morning to see them out in the open and playing like kittens.



It was fun watching them interact both with each other and with their older siblings.



We started several mornings with lions, spending time with several different prides. The warm morning light brought some nice golden tones to their fur. I was also impressed with how easily the lions could disappear into the grass.









One of my favorite scenes was when a group of females and cubs crossed the river as they moved toward some prey. I liked the contrast of the lions against the rocks as well as the reflections in the water.







On two different mornings we observed males attempting to mate. On the first morning two males were fighting over a nearby lioness, who clearly decided she wasn't in the mood for that nonsense and wandered off. On the second morning, two sets had paired off. When lions mate, they mate briefly and frequently - we were told 7 seconds every 20 minutes. They can get rough at the end, often swiping at each other or biting.



The bloody lip on the lion in the below picture came at the end of one of the mating sessions.

 

[Kyle Jones]

We made several attempts to find leopards, driving slowly on rough roads through trees and bushes in areas where they are known to be. We eventually found one female and were able to watch her for a while before too many vehicles arrived. I only captured a few photos, since she was mostly just sitting still and resting. It was interesting, though, to see the differences between the larger leopard and the more lithe cheetahs that we had seen up to that point.





As a special treat, we also found a mother serval cat and her kitten making their way through the grass. I never got a clean view of the kitten, but mom stuck her head up a few times for some photos. They eventually made their way into a den an a termite mound. We waited a while to see if they'd come out, but they never did.



We spent several mornings and evenings trying to capture some the tree silhouettes against the sun for which eastern Africa is known. I did learn a few lessons as I did this. First, if you want the sun to look large relative to the tree, you need to shoot from far enough away that you can use a very long lens (usually 500mm for me) and still fit the scene in the frame. We were too close for our first attempt, leaving the sun looking insignificant. Second, I generally exposed to keep color in the sun. This meant that the rest of the scene would be underexposed. Since I planned to let the landscape go black, this wasn't much of an issue and I was able to bring up the color in the sky without any problems. Having the sun partially blocked by the tree or the horizon also helps to balance the exposure.



A couple of us wanted to try getting a close-up shot of an attractive zebra looking straight at us. My first choice would have been to have the entire animal pointed toward me, but the zebras tend to turn around and face away from us when we stop, presumably to make escape easier. While trying this a few times, I learned that the zebras with stark black and white coloring tend to be males. Juveniles tend to have brown stripes and adult females have brown on their faces and more brown tints in their stripes.



The lighting was mottled in this photo of a reticulated giraffe, but the eyelashes get me every time.



One thing that was consistent across almost every species that we saw was competition - primarily between males. The would compete for mates, for dominance, for practice, and sometimes it seemed just for the sake of it. One of my favorite experiences was watching these two male zebras chasing each other around the plain and biting at each other.



The hippos got into the act also, although that seemed mostly limited to opening their mouths wide and grunting loudly. I actually spent a while at this section of the river. The hippos were mostly calm, either underwater of just resting at the surface. Without warning, sometimes one hippo would lift its head up and open its mouth wide. Sometimes two hippos would surface and make faces at each other. I just had to be lucky enough to be pointing in the right direction when something happened.



Sunrise balloon rides are a popular activity in the Mara, giving visitors a different perspective of the landscape and wildlife. It is expensive though, and can cost in excess of $700 per person during the high season. On this morning we were tracking a lion pride on the ground when I heard a loud hiss behind me. I turned around to see the balloons overhead.



Hunting

I had the opportunity to observe several hunts by both cheetahs and lions. This didn't just include the actual chase - it also included the predator tracking their prey, selecting a target, getting into position, and making their move. I learned a lot about how each cat uses their unique makeup to their advantage in catching food. Lions can rely on their individual strength as well as help from other members of their pride. Leopards rely much more on stealth. They will use whatever they can find in the landscape, including our cars, to give themselves an edge. Cheetahs rely on their speed. They don't have to get as close as the other cars to their intended target in order to be able to run it down.



As noted above, cheetahs have excellent eyesight and can spot their prey up to 5km away. They use elevated features in the landscape, like termite mounds or trees, as vantage points to pick out where to hunt. I've watched cheetahs both pick out a spot to sit and wait as herds of animals come to them as well as moving through the landscape toward a likely source of food.



Once they decide to make their move, they work their way slowly through the grass. Sometimes they will close the gap and then duck down for a little bit to reduce the likelihood of being spotted. Wildebeest seem to be pretty oblivious to approaching cheetah, but they tend travel with other more observant animals like zebras, Thomson's gazelles, or topi. I saw several hunts fail as a lone gazelle caught sight of the approaching cheetah and fixate on it until the wildebeest would see what was going on and run away. On one of those occasions the cheetah ran after them, but couldn't quite close the gap.



Topi also foiled a couple of hunts that we watched. Once they see the cheetah, several of them will stand and watch. Adult topi are generally too large for a lone cheetah to hunt, keeping the group fairly safe.



There were several occasions where I felt like the cheetah had an easy shot at something, but it never made a move. There were other times where it was spotted (I guess they are all spotted ) but decided to take off anyway. In the photo below, the cheetah had been creeping up on some wildebeest when they were alerted by a gazelle and started to run off. The cheetah accelerated and almost caught a straggler before he gave up the chase.



We did see one successful hunt. After tracking a cheetah all day, it finally took off after a gazelle. The chase went on longer than I had expected but ended with dinner. After an initial rush of vehicles, park rangers arrived and controlled traffic in a more orderly fashion, allowing 2-3 vehicles to approach at a time while the others waited.



Other predators, such as hyenas or jackals, had an impact on the hunts we watched as well. Hyenas are generally looking to scavenge kills made by lions or other animals, although we did see a pack attempt to pick off a warthog. Their presence, though, can also alert the prey to the primary hunter.





A jackal ruined one hunt by a lioness that we were tracking. She was working her way toward a warthog that was upwind, facing the other way, and oblivious to her presence. Then a jackal came up behind her, making no attempt at stealth at all, alerting the warthog who move off surprising quickly.



We started one morning watching a group of lionesses and a couple of juveniles move toward some nearby animals. We weren't sure if they were after some waterbucks, topi, or something else as they moved through the grass.



I was surprised by how much lions reminded me of dogs when they run.



We moved behind where we though the lions were going and set up, along with some other vehicles. A cheer erupted as a waterbuck broke through the bushes with two lions attacking.



They brought it down and the rest of the pride moved in for breakfast. The vehicles moved in also.



Here's a view of the lions with the waterbuck.



This was from earlier in the trip when a larger pride was feeding on a hippo. The lions learn different ways to hunt different kinds of animals. With the waterbuck above, they looked to tackle the animal and bite its neck. A hippo's mount is potentially deadly for lions, so in that case they hunt from the back and attempt to break its hind legs.



As the end of this post, I'll leave you with the last sunset of my trip. This mother and baby elephant were kind enough to line up in front of the sun.



Thank you for reading through both of my Kenya posts and I hope you enjoyed the pictures. Let me know which are your favorites and I can potentially process some similar shots.

 

[AlanLichty]

Wow - quite the adventure and your previous safari experience paid off in terms of how to best meet your photographic goals. Best of all for us was your attention to the details of the trip and the writeup you just provided above. Well worth the read and a lovely tranche of accompanying images. I am not even vaguely sure where to start in picking out favorites here.

Thanks for sharing your experience.