September 2008 : Grumeti Reserves

Like August, September has been another great month for game viewing at Singita Grumeti Reserves. Good rains coupled with the fire management plan have resulted in a green carpet of grass and acres of wild flowers throughout the property.

The game has dispersed over a far greater area compared to last month as water and lush grass is available everywhere. Zebra have descended here in their thousands and seem to be the most numerous of the huge herds of general game. The Beribai area has been host to them as well as herds of up to eighty eland, hundreds of topi, buffalo and many more.

The Sasakwa dam has been full to capacity but has not attracted herds of game to drink as water is freely available in natural pans, streams and the Grumeti River has been flowing strongly. The three resident hippos have been obliging with every visit to the dam putting on a show on cue.  The hippo bull is particularly active and will demonstrate his intentions if you venture into the water. 

The Butamtam pride has again provided our guests with some quality game viewing. The pride now comprises three lionesses and four cubs from two litters. The oldest cubs are about thirteen months and the younger two are about ten months old. The coalition of males has been reduced to two lions.

The pride, which normally preys predominantly on wildebeest and zebra, where seen early one morning at the foot of the Sasakwa hill attempting to catch a large male Olive baboon.

The Olive baboons are normally very brazen -wandering far out onto the plains to forage. This baboon was no exception and seemed to display little fear of the lioness as she stalked up to him. The baboon was some distance from the rest of the troop and made several daring attempts to get closer to the rest of his troop by escaping from his tree and running to the next when the lions lost interest for a second or two.  He pushed his luck too far on several occasions, having to scramble up to safety.  Lions in Tanzania are very good at climbing trees and he was pursued right to the crown on several.

The lions pursued the baboon for over an hour and he made four successful escape attempts to different trees before the sun stared to get warm and energy levels of the lions waned. Finally they lost interest and retired to the shade of a tree to rest.

Stuart Levine took these great shots of another pride along the banks of the Grumeti River.
It again demonstrates how comfortable our lions are as arboreal cats. The cubs were up in the Acacia tortillis while the mother lay in the grass below.

At the beginning of August, a female cheetah was seen at her den site with two very young cubs. Because the cubs were so young, we decided that we wouldn’t put the mother and her young ones under additional pressure by viewing them until they were older.

A week ago the mother was found with one cub in tow. We estimate the young one to be in the range of ten months old. This is typically the age at which we can start viewing the little ones as they are being exposed to the normal hazards of being a young wild animal. The mother was very comfortable having the vehicles in the immediate vicinity of the cub, however the little one wasn’t quite so convinced about having this strange, noisy creature around. It will take some time, but eventually after having regular exposure to the vehicles it will learn that we don’t pose any risk.

It is obvious that the other cub didn’t survive. At this age cheetah cubs are vulnerable to attack from all sorts of predators, even large birds of prey are a real threat when following mom on her daily movements.

Another potential threat to a young cub could be an African Rock Python. A fifteen foot specimen like this one would make short work of a five kilogram fluff ball. This python was seen downstream from Faru Faru.

This entry was sumbitted by Nick Bester and Ryan Schmitt
All the photographs were taken by Nick Bester and Ryan Schmitt
Singita Grumeti Reserves
Thirtieth of September 2008