Wildlife memorable moments
A lioness in Masai Mara national park, Kenya was on hunt on a hot summer late afternoon and while she was moving towards a herd of wildebeest; a dik-dik (small antelope) notices her and makes the call which alerts all the animals. The lioness ducks down and lies in the grass stalking - it was definitely a lot of patient watching and finally she makes her move on the wildebeest that continued with their grazing. She was able to take down the wildebeest, suffocate it. By then a couple of female lions join her along with a few cubs. Watching the cubs trying to eat the kill was special - their teeth and claws were not developed and they were trying their best to bite and pierce the kill but to no avail - they were literally wresting with the kill and unsuccessful after repeated attempts. Finally one of the aunts bites the kill, takes piece and feeds the young ones.
Saw 3 male cheetah brothers take down an antelope. the whole kill was so quick that before I could turn on my camera to record; they had captured the kill. The whole process was very interesting - one of the brothers goes full throttle at the antelope and brings her down. The 2nd brother joins him and then starts suffocating the antelope until it dies. Now these 2 brothers rest and the 3rd one starts eating. When we reached a bit closer to the cheetah’s I could literally see the heart beating of the 2 brothers that had made an effort to kill and they were resting to let their body cool.
A leopard was chased to top of the tree by 2 lions who were mating. The leopard got close to them while they were in their act and the male lion chased the leopard to top of tree. Usually leopards are very shy of us human beings and being on the tree provided us a great opportunity to the see the animal up close but at same time could really see the leopard was getting frustrated with all the vehicles around and the lions still nearby.
One night during my stay at one of the camps in Botswana, I could hear a loud snore the whole night that did keep me awake for most of the night. The next morning I asked the staff about the snoring I was hearing overnight and they mentioned it was the elephant sleeping next to my tent. They do sometimes sleep around the tent and usually wake up when the staff comes to wake guests up in morning - somehow they have figured out the best way to request wake up.
On one of the game drives - saw a black mamba snake pass by. It was very interesting to note that they are very territorial and if they are around the camp; they got to be killed. The camps can transport other snakes a bit far and leave them but black mamba tries to come back to the same spot.
On one of the game drives, I decided to sit with the guide in the Low level seat at the front. We saw 2 female lions who were resting on the ground. Our guide said it’s a family of 4 - 2 males and 2 females. We did not see any males next to the females. Next I hear a low roar and see a male walking towards the females. He then walks to a tree and tries to sharpen his claws. Then he walks towards the females and lies next to them. We were observing these 3 lions and next we hear another roar and saw the 4th lion (male) walking towards his family. He doesn’t join rest of his family and continues walking towards our vehicle. we all got pretty tense in the vehicle and requested guide to start the vehicle but was advised sudden movement can create problem. The male comes very close to our vehicle - if I put my hand out, I am touching the lion. He comes that close and then just lies down looking towards the rest of his family. That was one of the times in a safari I could hear my heart beat :). One of the things I learnt from that experience was even though lion probably had no intention to harm us, we were stressed with what’s going to happen - same is true on a safari; even though we have no intention to harm animals; they could easily get stressed with people approaching them.
During my Gorilla trek in Uganda Bwindi National park, there was a black back in the family, Montu who loved putting on a show. He came charging down the hill pretty close to us - our ranger said he was trying to get a high-five. Then he would stand up on feet and try to eat his chest. He even tried to bring down a tree to show his strength to us
One of the evenings after sundowner we were watching 2 lions using spot light in Botswana. The lions were mating. Next thing we hear is a lot of elephant trumpets. There was a big group of elephants near by with young ones and they were very agitated with lions around. The movement of elephants and their trumpets made the lions pretty uneasy as well and they were just running away from the elephants. Our guide told us that the spot light will be switched off and we will move away from them. I do not know how close and how large the elephant family was but definitely it was a frightening moment.
During our visit to Katmai Brooks falls for bear viewing; once the ranger gave us the orientation and informed us that this is the place of the bears and we all are just visitors here and if one comes across bears, move out and they will find the way. It’s a bit of walk from ranger orientation area to the falls and there are good chances to encounter bears during the walk. We were walking towards the fall and next we hear a person in front of us saying bear. Initially we could not figure out where the bear is coming from and then we finally see the bear walking on the road towards us. All of us moved to the side of road and stood. The bear is passing all of us while continuing his/ her walk on the road. When she comes close to Divya, she turns her head around and gives a look at Divya. You could really sense she was trying to come towards her and we got a bit tense. Next we know there’s another big boy following this bear and coming at a good speed. Luckily due to that bear chasing this one; she gave up on coming towards us and was running away from the big boy. Divya was wearing a bright colored windbreaker on that trip - she doesn’t wear any bright colored clothing anymore while out for wildlife watching.
During one of my Safari trips, I watched at one of the wetlands at least 5 -6 male pythons and a female engaged in group mating. It was crazy to see all of them out in the open and engaged in their act. My guide mentioned it was unusual to see this behavior completely out in the open with all the big raptors around since it can be an easy meal for them. These snakes were unfazed and kept going until we were there. This is the only time I have seen so many snakes at once.
