Marsh Lions – Masai Mara Photographic safari – Kenya – September 2014 – part 03

As usual, one of the main attractions in the Masai Mara is the Marsh pride of Lions, in the northwest of the reserve. This year the pride was huge, with many females having tiny cubs, so many that I could hardly keep track of all the cubs popping out. The four dominant males deserted the area most of the time, while they spent time across the Mara river and down to the Parasise plains. I hope they are not following the same pattern as the four Notch’s boys in 2009 – 2010, when they started from one place and kept on moving to conquer new areas, without really giving proper protection to the cubs they were siring on the way. We’ll see what happens in the future. For now the pride was particularly numerous also because the females who used to live in the Topi plains were pushed down to the Marsh by the huge numbers of Maasai cattle grazing the park at night, leaving no grass and no cover for them to hide. The impact of such a huge amount of cows in the reserve should not be underestimated.

We had wonderful time with the Marsh Lions at sunrise and sunset, in sun and rain, we watched them hunt a few times and climb fallen trees. Here are some of the images.