2013-02-05 Masai Mara NR, Kenya

Last full day on this safari, again at the Musiara Marsh. The pride of Lions there continues to provide fantastic opportunities to get to to know the intimate lives of these amazing social cats, and excellent photo opportunities. The weather seems to be getting better, and warmer. The females with the cubs were gathered around the airstrip again. One of the females looked particularly keen on hunting, but the others did not. So she left them and stalked a couple of Warthogs and a female Grant’s Gazelle. She kept looking back to see if any of the other females was following her lead, but they were all laying in the tall grass oblivious to their companion’s efforts at finding food. The males were still gathered around the young females. One of them was also very hungry, the same from yesterday. We stayed with her for a long time hoping she would attempt a Warthog hunt, but she never had a proper opportunity. Malaika the Cheetah and her cub were also in the area going from car to car, scanning the horizon, but today she found nothing. We spent the last afternoon with the females and the cubs. They woke up, the cubs played a lot. The female who had separated in the morning returned and there was a happy family reunion, with all the cubs and the females involved. An extraordinary spectacle. But as often happens in Lions’ society, there was an unextpected and immediate turn of events. As the family started moving in the plains, the females began attacking repeatedly and viciously one of the Lionesses, for a few minutes. Then it was peace again, and a beautiful sunset on the Isiria Escarpment.