The Green Grass!

One of the advantages of doing a safari in a large park like Masai Mara is that one can explore different areas in each safari. We left our property wanting to explore a new area for the afternoon safari last August. We were staying almost in the heart of the Mara Triangle which is where most of the action happens during the Great Migration. As we drove around admiring the sight of tens of thousands of Wildebeest which had migrated all the way from Tanzania in search of lush green grass, we noticed slight movement in the grasslands. It turned out to be a lone lioness stalking. We quickly drove to the road which was closest to where the herd of the wildebeest were grazing.

We waited patiently trying to locate the lioness who had almost disappeared in the grassland behind the short, green grass. We soon spotted her moving very slowly towards the herd, which consisted of Zebra and Wildebeest. Since we couldn’t find any other lions in the grassland we were not certain if she would make the move. The breeze was helping her plans as the grass swayed like a wave, camouflaging her slow approach.

As she reduced her distance between herself and a small isolated herd of wildebeest, it was evident she was going to go for one of those animals. She was approaching them head on, and used a small mound for cover. She waited patiently for the herd to move closer to her who were still oblivious to her presence. It seemed as though the taste of the newly sprouted grass was way too tempting for the animals to notice her presence. As they kept munching away, this lady waited patiently for the 8 to 9 animals to put their head down in unison while eating. The animals were grazing hardly 20 meters in front of her. The moment the animals put their head down together, the lioness charged at top speed causing chaos among the grazers. It took her not more than 5 seconds to latch onto one of the wildebeest and bring it down. She clamped on to the wildebeest’s neck trying to suffocate it while the wildebeest kicked the air bleating away with strands of fresh grass blades yet in its mouth. It kicked in vain for a few minutes and the grassland went silent.

The herds of zebra and wildebeest had dispersed by now and had resumed their grazing after maintaining ’safe’ distance from this big cat. We sat there in awe of the strength of this cat and felt lucky and sad at the same time to have witnessed the fight for food in the plains of Masai Mara.

Where: Maasai Mara, Kenya
When: August 2014
Equip: Canon 5D Mark III and Canon 500 f4
Info: f4 and 1/640 at 1000 ISO