2014-01-12 Masai Mara, Kenya

Up early in the morning to a clear and starry sky we headed down to Lookout Hill. On the way the Lookout pride of Lions was eating a kill. It took me a few minutes to figure out what they were eating. It was an Aardvark. A young male Lion, between two and three years of age, took the biggest share. We proceeded on as we were keen to find the Cheetah Amani with her four months old cub, which we heard had returned from Northern Serengeti. We found her three older cubs instead, two boys and a female, which I followed extensively since their separation from their mother in early August. Amani was nowhere to be found. We spent some time with the three young Cheetahs lying in the open plains. It was interesting to see a huge troop of Baboon come their way. The Cheetahs flattened themselves to the ground trying not to be seen. The big male Baboon bared their teeth when they saw the Cheetahs, but they were not as aggressive as they are when they see a Leopard. The Cheetahs sneaked away nonetheless. We then heard news that Amani had been spotted several miles to the north, walking with her cub. We reached her and followed her for the whole day. I have never seen a Cheetah walk such a huge distance in one single day. The previous day they were seen at Lookout Hill, in the south. They walked the whole morning until they laid to rest for less than an hour opposite Mara Intrepids. In the early afternoon she resumed her walk, crossed the Talek river and kept heading north, through empty plains, with not a single prey in sight. She wasn’t too keen to hunt though. I think she was mostly trying to put as much space as possible between her and her older cubs. Or maybe she took a scare from the Lions in the night. She kept on walking resting for a few minutes at a time until sundown, when she had reached the border with the Olare Orok Conservancy. Distance covered in one day was about twenty kilometers with a small cub. She looked lean and anxious, quite different from how she looked in 2012 when she had her previous litter. Hope all goes well for them in the coming months.