All in a Day
on Jun 13, 2023Setting out to go on safari can be very exciting and captivating but can also be a hit-and-miss situation. With the anticipation and perception of seeing as many wild animals as one can, sometimes doesn’t go as planned and other times the universe smiles back at you and offers you an experience of a lifetime.
An early morning thirty-minute head start often gives you enough time to drive into the cool morning breeze and stop to watch the sunrise and at the same time allow you to listen to all the different calls of animals and birds announcing the new day.
We had set out early in the morning and were lucky to find a cheetah lying down, waiting for the sun to come out and warm his body. We stayed with him for a while as he moved into different positions, giving our guests good photographic opportunities. We were not expecting to find a cheetah at all, and this sighting alone was already a huge success.
Still excited about our cheetah sighting, we drove around following up on impalas alarm calling for something, and we found the Golonyi female leopard walking around scent-marking her territory. With the soft sun shining on her face, she decided to use a termite mound as a vantage point to scan the area for potential prey and this was yet another perfect photographic opportunity for our guests.
Safaris do not always go according to plan, and we can anticipate and work extra hard to find what we are looking for, but sometimes animals find us instead. Precisely this happened as we spotted a Yellow-bellied Sand snake motionless on the path. Little did we know it had its eyes on a Rainbow skink. It did not take long, and the snake launched an attack on the lizard which it caught right in front of us. Sometimes you get more than you think you would in this natural habitat and such a sighting is rare to come across.
Being patient always pays off when it comes to safari. The more time you spend with an animal, the more you start appreciating and understanding certain animal behaviour. We had spent quite a long time after dark with the Jasiri female leopard and she exerted some behaviour I have never seen before. She jumped from one tree branch to the other, high up in the tree canopy, marking and leaving her scent on the branches all over the tree. At some point, she rested in between the branches before she came down and continued to scent-mark her territory again.
All of this was in one day. Some incredible sightings that normally are not seen in a day. It was a great success to deliver what our guests were looking for, and more!
Blog by Ronald Mutero (Selati Camp Ranger)
