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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kitefarrago" data-source="post: 3167338" data-attributes="member: 91670">CheetahsThanks for the positive feedback - it's nice to know somebody's reading.Having described the typical course of a day, the camp, and something about the Mara I'll now turn to saying something about individual and groups of species over a few posts, covering mammals and birds.Everybody who comes to the Mara wants to see cats. I've written quitea bit about lions and I may write a bit more, but let's turn to cheetahs now. I missed seeing this species in South Africa (I refused to count ones that were almost hand-raised, even if they werereturning to wilder ways at the time) and in Namibia so I had high hopes for the Mara, and I was not disappointed.Like all the cats cheetahs spend a good part of the day not doing very much, but since they're day-active hunters they're the most likely cat to go hunting while being watched. They also tend to stay in fairly open country - cheetahs aren't exactly big hitters, and they can't afford to get injured, so they tend to be on the look-out and move off if anything threatening turns up.This makes them comparatively easy to find - even when they're seeking shelter from the sun under a tree they're usually visible, in marked contrast with leopard, for example. I must admit though that I was in awe at the distance my guide could spot them - I know my eyes aren't the best, but even with binoculars I was struggling to see them when they were already obvious to Simon.Most cars would visit a cheetah when one was found somewhere near a track. Some because they have people on board who haven't seen one, and others to try and gauge how likely the animal is to go hunting.All the cheetahs we encountered were very relaxed about cars. Too relaxed in some cases: There's a female (and some of her offspring now) who's taken to jumping onto cars for the lookout they provide. Since the Mara is largely flat, with termite hills being the higher points, a car does give a good vantage point. Obviously this behaviour should not be encouraged - it's only a question of time until somebody does something stupid, and one has to worry what the consequences might be in the longer run.Cheetahs who were lying down would not stir when cars came up to look at them, and those that were moving typically moved freely through the cars. I'm also happy to report that on the occasions I saw hunting cheetah all drivers behaved sensibly and made sure the cat had room to move where it wanted to. I've heard tales of cars blocking cats in, and I saw really stupid behaviour around leopards, so that was good to see.We saw cheetah fairly often over the two week period, not quite every day but then we didn't try to find one every single day. I saw cheetahs hunting on three occasions: Once we found a female we stayed with for a while because we thought she was going to go hunting. She ended up (uncharacteristically) going through brushy country and my driver and I drew the conclusion she was trying to get rid of the couple of cars that were trying to follow her, and so we decided to let her be.On another occasion I saw very relaxed female that almost seemed to enjoy the attention from all the cars, and she ran after some wildebeest. I'm not entirely sure how serious she was - the animal she came closest to was an adult and surely too large to be a realistic prey item. After that she vanished from sight.And there was a third female who was clearly hungry (she looked as if she hadn't eaten in a while), and we stayed with her well over four hours one day, watching her (or at times when we couldn't see her waiting with the group of impala she was stalking) make three separate unsuccessful attempts before we lost her in the brush. Fortunately we found her around sunset with a freshly killed gazelle, so she did get to eat that day. It was fascinating to observe her switch between looking out, resting for a while, finding something that interested her, making an approach, breaking from cover, over this time. Again people behaved sensibly on this location, despite the fact that she had a fairly large following at some point. It was a real privilege to watch her over such a long period.We later found another cheetah on a fresh kill, just a few days later, so the chances of having decent sightings of cheetah are pretty good.Everybody's cheetah highlight this summer was, however, a female with six young. She proved so popular that the authorities had to declare the area off-limits eventually for fear of attracting predators to her. (She's since lost one of the five.) We were lucky enough to be able to spend a little time with her - just ten minutes. The area where she resided with her family was an hour's drive from our camp, and after our encounter with her rain fall meant that one of the fords en route became impassable, and so we weren't able to return. It has to be a good thing that her location was in a less visited part of the park.When we were with her the young were suckling, and then moving about a bit. She was completely relaxed, and clearly had no worries regarding our car. We sat there quietly for a few moments, drinking it in. The light was horrible for photography, but sometimes just experiencing something is more important. There was nobody else there. I got the impression that the drivers in that part of the world were keeping her quiet and effectively rationed the visits, but word does get out, of course.I don't think the pictures require commentary today. I'll tack on a couple extra posts with more photos.Andrea</blockquote>

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