2010-11-18 – Masai Mara G.R.

After a couple of days of intensive and fruitless search for Caracals I visited the Talek river to find some interesting situations. The territorial female Leopard, Mbili, was consorting with a huge male. She didn’t seem particularly interested, she was snarling at him a lot, but maybe the situation will evolve tomorrow. I had never seen this male before, but frequently heard him call at night from my tent, so it was nice to finally see him, although I couldn’t take any worthy image of him as it was too late and he is a bit shy. Another strange encounter, two male Lions, strangers to me, were mating a female right in the heart of the Ol Kiombo pride. The Ol Kiombo males are a powerful cohalition of three Lions in their prime, so I was very surprised to find these two, approximately three and half years old, mating here. The males must be patrolling another section of their huge territory. They have moved further east into the reserve this season, showing up only occasionally in their former territory. In the early morning I also had a very nice encounter with a Porcupine and her young. They ran to cover immediately as they saw the vehicle.