NDUTU
MOMENTS
It has been a fun Green Season.
Regular visits to Ndutu have made for great
opportunities to revisit the regulars there and see how they’re doing.
The 3 cheetah brothers (The 3
Mouseketeers?) were among the cast of stars; some of you will be familiar with
these guys, if you’ve been to Ndutu in the last few years. They are often to be found around the
Marshes / 2 Trees area, and are very reliable hunters. This has been made easier by all the recently born wildebeest calves.
For Cuteness Factor, it was difficult to
beat the Striped Hyena mother and cub, who played endlessly. Striped Hyenas are unusual animals:
solitary and nocturnal, you usually only get a brief sighting of them on a
night drive. So to have these two
playing together for hours on end in bright sunlight and in the open was a huge
pleasure.
The lion pride often to be seen around the
Big Marsh had 2 sets of young cubs; The younger set must have been born in mid-
December so they also provided plenty of entertaining viewing. (But see under ‘Cuteness Factor’
above…)
There was also a cheetah female with young
cubs, gorgeous with their long silky-furred necks and backs. One thing about youngsters: all that
growing requires a lot of food, so she was having to work very hard to
keep them fed.
****
Apart from these ‘regulars’, there was lots
more going on. I had a beautiful sighting of a caracal mother with her cub;
what a stunning cat! Another
noteworthy sighting was of a Patas monkey – as far as I know, the first ever
record in the Ndutu area. Poor thing, he must have been very lost and very
desperate to find some friends…
There is talk of a pack of Wild Dogs in the
woodland to the south; we go that way a couple of times but no joy. Well, plenty of joy actually, but none
of the Wild Dog variety.
Bu there is so much more: elephant were
plentiful and very relaxed.; great migration action; giraffe; and lovely
flamingos on Lake Ndutu, once it filed up. Viva Ndutu!
