THE OTHER END OF THE LEASH

I’m working on a post about the comparative behavior of wolves, coyotes, African Wild dogs and domestic dogs, but here’s a short digression for the cat lovers.

An adult lioness in the Maasai Mara marks a bush after rising from a nap. You can clearly see the stream of urine in the photo. Aren’t you glad our house cats don’t weigh 260-450 pounds?

A female cheetah marks a tree.

We found this cheetah right after landing in the “Kenyan Serengeti,” the Maasai Mara. After we landed at a tiny airstrip and loaded up in safari vans on our way to our lodging, we ran into a hunting cheetah who was stalking Impala. After a few minutes she made her move, and dashed at the herd. She was too far away for us to take any photographs, but none of us will ever forget watching one Impala leap over five feet high and fifteen feet horizontally over the tall grasses as the cat charged toward the group. The cheetah was not successful, and strolled away (the rolling gait of a cheetah, with their long, absurdly loose bodies, is a beautiful thing to see).

Here she is, scratching the ground after marking (looking almost dog like at that point, if you’ll forgive the comparison).

The downside of seeing her? Cheetahs hunt during the day, unlike most cats, and appear to be affected by tourism. Our van and several others followed her for awhile as she walked across the savannah, and I was relieved when she cut away and disappeared from view. If she hadn’t I would have asked us to leave, it felt like we would have been harassing her if we had continued.

Not far away we came upon 3 males, probably the grown young of our female friend, snoozing as only cats can in the shade under a solitary tree. Overall, the Kenya trip resulted in seeing more cats up close and personal than any of my other trips (lions especially (more photos to come), cheetah, leopard (briefly), servals and some people (not me) even saw an African Wild Cat, the progenitor of our house cats on a night drive in Botswana.

Here’s a lioness greeting one of the pride’s cubs in the golden light of an African morning:

THIS WAS WRITTEN on August 11th, but not posted til now. So don’t get confused, it’s out of order!

In transition, 10 minute to write. in nairobi between tent camp on edge of maasai mara in masai village and flights either to home or to So Africa for those of us going on to Botswana.  Trip amazing, too much to process while it is happening. Picture:

The ultimate ‘hard eye’ from a lioness 10 ft from YOU while she walks by your van with her cubs.

A leopard getting beat out over a kill by a lion.

Streams of wildebeest drawing lines across the vast and open mara, always led by zebra.

Elegant and yet adorably cute Thompson’s gazelles switching their tails in time to the bumps in the road.

More dust in your hair than you can ever imagine getting out.

Talking to young maasai warriors about their belief that cows = money, and wondering how long they can continue gathering cattle now that they tend to stay in one place.

Making life long friendships with driver guides Joe and John and Hamm, and especially Tony, our own African Angel.

Hearing that Lassie looks all over the house several times a day.. for me? and trying not to turn into a puddle.

gotta go, car leaves for airport in 20 min. next adventure, here we come….

(and everyone is well.. a few tough days for some of us, me included, but everyone doing great, though all ready for a long bath and long sleep!)

An alert reader sent in a link to a story about ‘village’ dogs in Russia who have figured out how to forage for food in an urban setting. The dogs actually hop onto trains that take them into the city where there is a great deal of food. But they don’t just forage in garbage pails, their strategies are far more sophisticated. There are reports of dogs sneaking up behind people eating and barking loud enough to startle the person into dropping their food. They schmooze up to children, rest their heads on the leg and look–well, you know–all soft and pleading and get fed snacks from the kids. Reportedly they have learned to use the traffic lights to cross the road safely and it is said they that know what stops to get off on and even to alert one another when the stop is coming up.

I’m a bit skeptical of the last part of that statement, not disbelieving entirely, just skeptical, but I have no trouble believing that they can easily understand traffic lights. Check out this video of crows who not only have learned to drop nuts onto a busy street for cars to run over them and crack their shells, they’ve learned to use the pedestrian cross walks to collect their bounty when the cars are stopped at red lights!

Meanwhile, back in Botswana, and having nothing to do with crows or dogs, here are some of a few favorite photos from my last trip to Africa:

I don’t know if we’ll see many elephants in the Okavango Delta, but I’m sure we will have seen many in Kenya. I can’t describe to you what it is like to be within a few feet of one of these magnificent animals, and to watch their intricate social relationships and communicative signals. On my last trip we watch a small herd of elephants walk out of river and almost into the lap of a resting pride of lions. The lead matriach elephant threw up her trunk and tail, flapped her ears and trumpeted loudly while trotting quickly toward the pride. The lions looked stupefied for one moment, and then lept up and ran away. You can imagine that we loved watching it, and patted ourselves on the back for telling our driver to just let us sit in one area for awhile and let things unfold around us, rather than driving willy-nilly to look for ‘more animals.’

Watched adult female and two subadult cubs (3-4 yrs? still some spots on legs) chase vultures off a recent zebra kill. Elephants coming in out of the hills to feed in the amboseli swamps, we’ll see more of them later today. Am meeting with camp naturalist to learn more… saw an animal that looked exactly like an African Wild Cat…. which is pretty much exactly like a tabby house cat.  How tell difference? At night the zebra and antelope come right up to the veranda. Have to watch out for vervets, who try to steal the sugar off your table and dash in your room. Yesterday we caught one on our luggage, just starting to unzip it. And yes, we’ve seen lots and lots of robin egg blue testicles (on the vervets, honest.  they even have a penile display that zoologists patriotically call the “Red White and Blue display.” Gotta love it.)

Running out of computer time, don’t know if will have access again in Kenya. This lodge is the biggest we’ll stay out, otherwise we are in small, tent camps. The facilities are lovely, even can get a massage (!) but there are a lot of people and we’ve been spoiled by our first isolated tent camp in the Tsavo. Will be similar tho in the Masai Mara, staying in a small, isolated tent camp.

Love to everyone, with a heart ful of gratitude to be able to experience such an amazing place, and to be so blessed with so much. Wish I could send photos, but am taking bunches and will post when return.

Here we are in Amboseli. 9 pm, long day, ending with dinner watching gazelles, zebra and wildebeest walking past the dining room. went on game drive in evening, found pride of 9 lions:2 black maned males, 2 cubs and 5 females. some of us saw them very closely, my van not right next to the van, but still amazing. cubs playing on top of mom, males looking bored and regal. all getting ready for nightly hunt.

Is just as wonderful as you would hope. People so kind, country astounding–vast and huge and full of contrasts. Dry sand dirt and electric red robes of  Maasai. Is sadness too–terrible drought causing suffering to people and animals alike. Maize crop has failed for people. Grass gone for grazers, so hippos and zebra suffering terribly. Browsers like giraffe and Kudu antelop doing much better. Birds everywhere, so beautiful you can’t believe they are real. Lisa, one of group, got a photo of a Lilac Breasted Roller (check it out) that will knock your socks off.  It’s hard to believe some of the birds are real, they look like Dr. Seuss or Disney animals.

Too much to describe in my 15 min of internet time, but have seen hyena, black backed and golden jackals, absurd and amazing numbers of elephants (including babies, “tembo toto” in Kiswahili. (Baby giraffe are Twigga Toto. How cute is that?

We are reveling in wildlife, country and people. Went to a Maasai school today that we had arranged before hand. Chlldren sang for us, so sweet our hearts could barely stay in our bodies. We taught them how to play Hokey Pokey dance (Barbara’s idea.. such a stroke of brilliance). The kids loved it, but not as much as we, all holding hands in a big circle, laughing together.

Group that came is delightful, couldn’t be better. Each van, of 4-6 people is developing it’s own personality, including the Impala Harem. I’ll let them explain… if they dare.

Tomorrow it’s a 6:30 game drive (best to see cats) for some, visit to a Maasai village for others. Then back for breakfast, and a game drive or nature walk.

Gotta go do some laundry. So much dust in my hair and clothes I could sell bags of sand for highway departments…

More soon, if can…