Dinner time for Duma

Having left Notch and Co with full stomachs last night it was not a huge surprise to find them this morning in the same spot. Vultures were feeding on a new carcass so evidently they had sourced more food during the night. Despite their fullness Notch and one of his sons were still managing to fit in some 'feline love'! To our surprise we came across a cheetah mother with the most adorable young cub, although it was hard to 'age' it appeared to be around 6-8 months old. Suprising as the area they were located in was thick rocky scrubland and rather worryingly near the Notch clan. This cheetah was seen only days ago very near to the Tanzanian border, which is more typical of the habitat where we usually find cheetah in this area. Having waited until most of the vehicles had moved on she spotted a herd of Impala and it was not long until she had singled out her prey, a young fawn. Showing an unbelieveable amount of patience she chose her angle of attack through an area that shielded her from the view and staying downwind to conceal her scent from the Impala. The cub showed an excellent level of maturity for its age, staying very still for a considerable amount of time whilst the mother lay in wait for the Impala to come a little closer. At a point in time when the Impala became distracted from a herd of Zebra running nearby she made her attack, running up an over a ridge and out of sight. For a moment it was not known if she had been successful, but as the herd came running out it was clear that one was missing, the young fawn. Minutes later she could be seen dragging her prey over 100m away, whilst its always hard to see any animal die we felt a sense of relief that the she had been successful. To ensure that no other predators or scavengers were alerted to her activities we moved away from the sighting and on to cook some food ourselves! Leaving happy in the knowledge that she had the opportunity to feed and replenish the energy expounded during the chase. Fortunately Notch and Co were simply to full to have noticed the activities nearby and given no cries were let out at the time of the Fawn's 'dispatch' we were confident she would be left to feed in peace.