We are a bit behind of blogging given our days have been spent out in the field most of the day for the last 3/4 days! As we write this post we are now in a different section of the Mara so time for a quick update on our few days in the Mara Triangle (MT) before we moved to a different location. The weather has been mixed, heavy cloud with rain on a couple of occasions in the evening, the last day in this area it started to clear and we hope this fair weather continues! We had some fabulous Rhino sightings, Including a female and calf that is being closely followed by a beautiful, yet protective and aggressive male. Twice we have seen them together, interesting given that Black Rhino are normally solitary. Whilst we would love to post a photograph of these guys it feels inappropriate to do so given the issue of poaching and the photo will provide too much indication of their current location.
We managed again to find the two females with the 7 x 3 month old cubs who then stayed in the exact same location for 48 hours. What we are not 100% sure of is whether the two females are in fact part of the Owino pride (satellite pride of the Oloololo pride). Something we are still trying to ascertain, but at present we suspect and remain fairly confident they are from the core of the Oloololo pride. The mothers have been struggling to hunt, in an area of little game at this moment in time, on many occasions refusing the cubs to suckle. However, the cubs still look healthy, although a fraction on the skinny side, and although the females had quite a low weight index and little milk they will no doubt have success soon when a little more game passes through. Confident that opportunities will present themselves to hunt warthog and zebra, from the small herds that are transiting back toward the Serengeti. Given they had not fed for at least 2/3 days the females and cubs were reletively inactive. Frustratingly we heard so many people pulling up to the sighting moaning that lions are lazy!! Far from being lazy they are merely conserving their energy, a strategy that lions will often employ.
Fortunately we again found the 3 adult female lions and 4 cubs who we are reasonably confident are from the paradise pride. They are hunting successfully at night and looking well indeed. It seems there are 3 male cubs and 1 female cub and perhaps the MT is providing a safe haven from the recent marauding males from the Marsh. Contrary to many reports that the 4km males had lost this pride it seems that 'lipstick' is still holding tenure of these particular ladies and offspring. Whilst we did not see him with them during the last sighting we did hear a male roaring nearby on the morning we found them, but sadly we did not get any visual of the male, but suspect that it was 'Lipstick'. We failed to find the other two males who are part of this coalition while in the Mara Triangle.
Other 'big cat' sightings included seeing 'Milima', the female cheetah and her 12-13 month old male cub. She sadly lost some of her cubs (3 we recall) to lion just less than a year ago so it was a huge relief to see she had managed to get one of her cubs this far, fingers crossed she can rear him to independence. We found them sat upon a murran pit, sweltering in the heat of the mid day sun, both resting but continually looking around for prey to hunt. A small group of Zebra passed by, Milima initially went into hunting mode but then soon realising that these Zebra were all far to big to even consider predating. They both returned to their slumber and we left them to return to camp as we had a few vehicle chores to complete!
The not so good news is that a male lion has been killed in the MT, we were headed to the Narok portion of the reserve, at this point having reached north at a place called look out hill. As we reached this point we received a text from a contact in the MT advising a male lion had been found in the MT with injuries sustained from a suspected lion fight and whether we wanted to try and ID. Whilst we had crossed through the gate already we were keen to see if we did recognise this male we made an about turn and met with our ranger friend back at the southern gate who took us directly to his location. By the time we arrived the male (circa 5 years old)- had managed to make his way a shirt distance into a shady water filled lugga. Ranger Bett showed us a video and some images of when he was found earlier that morning. It was a terribly sad sight indeed, blood pouring from what looked to be a puncture wound to the top right of his skull and unable to walk properly, almost falling over with every step and completely disorientated. Clearly the injury had caused serious damage to his brain/nervous system. Always a sad sight to see a majestic male in such a fragile state. We could see him in the bushes, the bleeding having subsided by this time, but clearly by the way he tried to occasionally reposition himself he was in a great deal of pain. We all suspected he would not make it, although lions are resiliant and can fight back from the most terrible injuries this seemed unlikely in this case given there looked to be such bad damage to his central nervous system. What was a little odd was that there were signs of no other injuries, ordinarily in a lion fight other claw marks, bite marks and especially attempted bites to the spine etc would be expected to be visible, but not on this male. Even more interesting were two other males nearby, one younger than the other. One was mating with an adult female while the other lay around 150 metres away. Both in very close proximity to the injured male. Both males had no injuries either and had the males been fighting with these two you would have expected some sign of a fight, all that could be seen on the mating male was a small, but not so recent wound to his rear. So whilst the wound on the head of the injured male resemblembed a large canine bite it seemed a little odd to see no other signs of a lion fight. Given his head injury was so severe you would have also expected this to have been a fight to the death once this male would have been immobilised with such a deep puncture wound, especially as the other males were still within 250 metres of the injured male. We therefore believed that the three were likely from the same coalition, it was unlikely that such a bad injury would have also been caused by males fighting over mating rights, again more signs of fighting would have been visible. So it was a little strange indeed to see no other injuries. The other theory, is that if it was not caused by a fight he was possibly trying to hunt and had been gored by a wildebeest horn. However, the wound looked to small to be caused by such and we could therefore only assume it was caused by a canine bite. Perhaps caused by another male who was chased away by the other two before the fight continued.
After a little time and being able to observe him from a position and distance that did not disturb him we left him. With a heavy heart we embarked back on the journey to the Narok side, knowing he was likely to perish and sadly the next day we heard news to confirm this. He was indeed alive the next morning as per information from Ranger Betts, but later that afternoon we heard that he was attacked by what looked like buffalo, who had gored him in the stomach and must have happened just a few hours after the update. A sad sight to see the fall of what was once a beautiful male, the only peace being sought in the fact it was of natural consequence and that instead of suffering from starvation and lying in great pain for days his end was brought sooner rather than later. He was a male we did not recognise, and nor had we seen or had ID files for the other two males nearby. We indeed wandered if they were new males to the purrangat pride.
This brings to a close our last few days in the Mara Triangle, where we will return at the end of the trip for a few more days, updates coming soon from our first few days in the Northern/central section of the Masai Mara, including more cute lion cubs!
Fighting stallions
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