June 22nd, 2004
Over the last five days we have seen the first wildebeest front runners arriving and needless to say the lions are as happy as we are! Small groups of less than a hundred have crossed the Mara and Sand rivers and are now in the Rekero Camp area, with larger groups of about five hundred seen crossing the Sand River yesterday whilst we were on a scenic flight.
Rekero Camp opened three weeks ago and it already feels as though we never left! The lone bull hippo is back in front on Camp, as are the three buffalo brigadiers. The Camp lion pride was also back in residence over the last few days and is now a male, eight females and a six month old cub. Even with the incredibly long grass, the game viewing has been excellent.
Keke (the female cheetah who, along with her three cubs, stars in the BBC's 'Big Cat Diary') welcomed the first group of guests of the season by jumping straight onto the bonnet of their car and then calling all three cubs up. That was ten minutes after they landed! Within the last week Keke has left her cubs and was last seen in the Rhino ridge area, the cubs have headed out south and have been seen regularly on the Ol Keju Rongai. Their hunting techniques are by no means perfect, quite entertaining at times, but they seems to be managing and like their mother seem to have learnt that the best vantage point to select the next meal is on top of the Landcrusier!! Also in the Rongai area is a young female cheetah with her first two cubs, they are now about six weeks old so have a long rocky road.
Further afield we have been seeing the plenty of hungry lions, the Ol Kiombo pride, Ridge pride and River prides are all in their usual territories. With the grass being so long most animals had moved north to the short grass plains of the Conservation area so it's been tough for the lions and they have had to adapt by living off bigger animals such as hippo and buffalo.
On the Leopard front, sightings have been frequent but often fleeting. A BBC crew is back in the area trying do a follow up episode on Bella and her cubs, but they two have been struggling with only three sightings of her in two weeks and none as yet of her cubs. She has moved nearly a mile into a new territory on the double crossing and it seems that her old spot has been filled by another female who has one cub. Jackson recently spotted the big camp male leopard up a tree on our Talek crossing with the remains of a warthog which you don't see too often.
Elephant and Buffalo numbers are incredibly high in the Ol kiombo area and the smaller grazers are beginning to move their way back in as the Loita zebra migration works their way through the longer grass.
Other Camp News is that we were one of a handful of Camps and Lodges to be awarded a Bronze rating by the Eco- tourism Society of Kenya. We will now be amongst the first to be assessed for the Silver rating when it is introduced later in the year.
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