January was a wonderful month in the Serengeti and unlike last year we weren’t drowned, we had just enough rain the carpet the plains in short green grass, wild flowers and fill them with game. The resident game moved mostly to the plains between the three lodges, making access to the herds fairly central from any of the three camps. In addition to the Nyati plains, game numbers increased dramatically towards the end of the month on the plains west of Sabora. One had to wade through herds of literally thousands of Topi, Zebra and Thompson’s gazelle with hundreds of eland, buffalo intermingled amongst them.

The occupancies were quite low in January so on many days only one or two game viewers were out on a drive. This took exclusivity to the next level with a density of about one game viewer to 350 000 acres. In spite of this predators were seen nearly every day. The plain north of Sabora was a hotbed of cheetah activity. The Cheetah coalition camped north of Sabora for a good deal of the month and was more often than not seen from the Sabora access road. They were seen on one occasion sharing the shade of a Balanites aegyptiaca with a trio of warthogs, both seemed unconcerned with one another. Besides these two we had several sightings of a female and her nearly grown offspring until they were joined by a male. The two sub-adults were then abandoned and the courting pair disappeared together.

Another regular visitor to the same area was this female, pictured on the side, finishing off a Thompson’s gazelle lamb in the late evening.

The Manangai clan pictured fighting over the remains of a Thompson’s gazelle ram. The clan numbers at least 30 animals with a dozen or so youngsters occupying a maze of burrows along the Manangai drainage line.