Humungous herds!

Anyone that takes the 'text books' of African wildlife too literally may not expect me to be blogging about what we saw yesterday in the Mara. Technically the guide books will always state that the wildebeest migration takes place between July and September and this is indeed generally true and of course the same time of year when the Mara is heaving with literally hundreds of tourist vehicles and the chaos that sadly seems to accompany this. It's for this reason that Andy and I now tend to avoid this time of year after having done many migration seasons and seeing the Mara getting more and more chaotic during high season. However, coming in Mid October, although tending to be slightly more temperamental weather wise is certainly a great time to come and a time of year I would always recommend (despite the torrential afternoon downpours we have suffered every afternoon!). Most of the tourists have left yet in the vast majority of cases the Wildebeest have not.

The Wildebeest migration is not just a one way cycle of crossings and instead a complex cycle of movements around the Mara that can continue sometimes into late October (we have even seen big crossings in December!) and this year it has proved no exception.

A few weeks back it looked as if the Wildebeest (who arrived 'late' this year as reported in our blog from early July) were indeed following 'text book' and headed back to the Serengeti to continue their transit through the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem, eventually moving towards the Ndutu area for calving in February before cycling back toward the Mara for July. They had remained in the Mara Triangle for the last week or where they enjoyed the lush palatable grass and some herds moving South quite fast. However, in the last few days the number of Wildebeest in the Mara Triangle has reached unbelievably huge numbers, with as many as 500,000+ in the area. Truly an unbelievable sight to see endless plains dotted with what you first think is bushes in the distance to then see on closer inspection masses and masses of wildebeest.

In true fashion of abandoning the 'rules of the guide books' the Wildebeest have in large abandoned the transit to the Serengeti and have once again started to mass in huge numbers along the southern end of the Mara River and so yesterday we were lucky to experience a large crossing of around 7,000 - 10,000 wildebeest, crossing from the Mara Triangle onto the plains South west of Look Out Hill.

We had received a phone call from a good friend of ours and a guide in the Mara who had informed us that a crossing was imminent and by 10am we were down in the area after having a quite morning drive, only briefly seeing Notch again who had crossed back over the the South side of the Talek River. Waiting only around 1.5 hours (which is not bad as sometimes we have waited 5 hours for a crossing!) they did their usual 'shall we or shall we not cross routine' which always builds up the anticipation before launching down to the river.

The crossing was actually quite orderly, but no less dramatic as the Wildebeest took the plunge into the deep waters of the Mara, disturbing Hippos nearby who soon moved their young calves away from the swirling waters created by the herds. Some took easier routes, whilst some took leaps from higher up the banks and then battling against the current of the river to the other side. Its always a tense and often emotional scene and you watch some of the Wildebeest battle for their lives, not always making it across.

The crossing lasted around 45 minutes or so and in that time streams of wet and tired wildebeest flooded the plains where the grass was already short from being grazed by previous herds. Some mothers who had already crossed called from over the river for their young had become separated in the chaos and conversely some calves who had crossed already called frantically for their mothers to join them. Its always an emotional scene and not all have happy endings. Fortunately the number of casualties seemed to be in low numbers from this particular crossing. At least one fell victim to a croc attack that happened out of site and it seemed that even though many thousands had crossed not too many suffered from drowning from the currents or broken limbs from the passage down the banks.

Still after the crossing many herds remained close on the opposite side of the river as it looked as if a another, even larger group would cross around 1km further down the river. so we waited.....and waited and waited, but eventually the Wildebeest turned and moved away from the river after another 2 hours of the 'will they wont they' game.  Given the number of wildebeest that still remain here there are certainly likely to be some more crossings in the next few days, although it is still expected that many will continue the transit to the Serengeti rather than to cross back over the Mara River.

We still had some time for an afternoon drive but as more rain clouds had started to form we made our own crossing back over the Talek River in time before the rain and mud would again make the crossing impassable and so again we decided to stay local to our camp and went to try and find the Olkiombo breakaway lionesses again.  It was not too long until we found one of the females with the cub we had seen a day or two previous and in similar fashion to the other day we found them bounding around the plains, having a great time in the coolness of the afternoon once the rain had stopped.

As you sit and watch the cub play you see all the behaviours exhibited when a lioness hunts and it shows how important playing is for a cub to learn the necessary hunting skills. The female cub bounded around, stalking the lioness, grabbing her around the neck, practising the 'kiss of death' and of course the launch from behind. It was flat light for photos and much of the time they played in the longer sections of grass and in the lugga, but apart from a short time with a couple of other vehicles we spent a good couple of hours with them alone. A really nice way to end a great day

So a fantastic migration crossing with only a handful of cars and a lioness and cub to ourselves shows why we generally love to come at the end of the season...

Wildebeest launch into the Mara River 

Chaos in trying to exit the river 

Hunting school is fun for a cub!