July 2008 : Grumeti Reserves

As the great migration moves on from us to greener pastures in the north we all experience a degree of sadness. After a truly wonderful month or so of Gnu’s everywhere we miss their clowning around, their long sad faces, their endless hunch backed stroll across the plains, the frenzied activity of the rut…but they’ll be back. Quite frankly though we don’t miss them for long as the game viewing after the big herds move through has always been superb during the last few seasons, and this year was no different.

The Cheetah of Grumeti
The elusive leopards have been made famous for years in the Sabi Sand, South Africa, and Singita Ebony and Boulders enjoy some of the best leopard viewing in Africa. Across to the east of the Kruger National Park, Singita Lebombo and Sweni lodges are in the heart of lion territory, with huge prides of no fewer than 22 ruling the roost there. Here, out on the quintessential African plains, the cheetah is our flagship big cat and we are fortunate to see lots of the worlds fastest land animal.

The females, mostly solitary except when accompanied by their cubs, tend to focus most of their hunting on Thomson’s gazelle. The Thommie is accredited with the silver medal for sprinting, with a top speed of 70 km/h. Only the cheetah eclipses them into first place with a top speed of about 110 km/h. The short grass left by the marauding herds of wildebeest and zebra provide ideal habitat for the little Thommies, and about 350 000 pass through our concession over these months, the tail-end of the great migration.

 

The two male cheetah brothers, great studies in symmetry, are territorial in our areas on the plains between Sabora, Faru and Sasakwa. They concentrate their hunts on bigger prey, and are often seen tracking down juvenile and sub-adult wildebeest calves. Working as a team allows them the best chance to catch and subdue this bigger prey.

The brothers showed their adaptability though and towards the end of the month took on a tiny Thommie lamb, no older than about a month. The little lamb held its own for longer than expected, jinxing and jiving, attempting to throw the bigger and faster predator off of its track, but in the end the second male arrived and swiftly cut off an escape route and dispatched of the youngster.

What was probably most memorable about this exciting hunt was the arrival of the two tawny eagles, within seconds! Obviously perched on a nearby tree
catching the morning suns rays – they arrived before the lamb was even dead! Not a minute later a single lappet-faced vulture then followed the smaller birds in and even kicked one of them off of his perch!

 

The Hippo show

Our three resident hippo, having only occupied the Sasakwa dam for about 7 months, have really habituated well to the vehicles and have become quiet the showmen. The large dominant bull has been yawning his head off! The yawn of the hippo is a territorial threat or advertisement display – designed to intimidate the intruder / neighbour with an enormous gape – exposing the huge teeth.

The lions have also enjoyed the new arrivals and watched with curiosity from the safety of the bank.

 

Fly on the wall

The bright green iridescence of the Banded Blowfly (Chrysomya albiceps) is usually very noticeable at carcasses and the nearby vegetation. This fly is often the first to arrive at a dead animal, where they congregate in thousands. They lay their eggs on the rotting meat and the maggots or larvae of this fly consume huge quantities of the meat. It is mainly the females at carcasses; the males are more often found lapping nectar at flowers.

 

Lions aplenty

Our pride structure here at Grumeti is becoming more traditional, with bigger groups of more stable lions settling into more defined territories. The pride we see most often is a group of 9/10. There are two, sometimes three lionesses, four cubs and three big males. This pride has never been far from Sasakwa lodge, either hanging out along a stream near the airstrip or the plains in front of Sasakwa Lodge. As always, the cubs are the most endearing, two of them are about 10 months old and the younger two are around seven months old.

There have been abundant zebra herds around, and the pride has seldom gone hungry. During a day trip to the nearby Ngorongoro Crater we were lucky to watch five lions hunting a lone zebra stallion. Despite their best efforts the zebra lived to see another day.

Meanwhile our lions back home just carried on helping themselves from the zebra buffet at the Sasakwa dam…….the full bellied youngsters stalking and chasing the ever present vultures!

 

To conclude this month we end, rather fittingly, with some vultures. Eventually every single living thing here dies and is fed on. Usually the absolute last to feed are the vultures, the unsung garbage men of the savanna. These dirty old garbage men (and women) however, can be quite romantic.

This entry was sumbitted by Lee Fuller
All the photographs were taken by Lee Fuller
Singita Grumeti Reserves
Thirty-first of July 2008