Governors Camp in the Masai Mara is one of the most historic and luxurious camps in the reserve. Built for the former British Governors as a hunting base, it is now one of the leading safari camps and base for the BBC team who film “Big Cat Diaries”. Here is the Camps Game Report for August, with update on the Migration. For details on staying at this beautiful camp, look at our Governors Camp trip.

“The annual migration of wildebeest and zebra has come into our area in smaller herds of a few thousand or so. They are very quick to move with various groups coming onto Rhino Ridge and down to the Musiara airstrip and then disappearing just as quickly. The main concentration we believe are still to come, they are down towards Look Out Hill near the Tanzanian border and many still in Tanzania. However we have had some large river crossings at the main crossing area near Paradise Plains, numbering 5000 - 10000. These occurred mid month, earlier on in the morning which is not typical as the wildebeest will often wait for it to get hot and then take tentative steps towards the water for a drink and then decide to go for the plunge! There have been many crossings since, but in smaller numbers.

After a short absence of cheetah in the area our female cheetah and her young cub have returned and have taken to jumping on the bonnets of the vehicles, the cub a little small yet. Sadly the cub looks to be blind in one eye but this does not seem to impair it too badly. They seem to be preying on gazelles only as the wildebeest calves may be too much of a challenge for her. The three brother cheetahs have been seen regularly now, but they now move huge distances. They do not seem to be fraternizing with any females but are rather spending their time hunting, ranging from the Talek river to the Koiyaki area out of the reserve and back to us at the Musiara Marsh. They are confident enough to be taking on young wildebeest. The single female cheetah which was seen mating with the brothers over a month ago now has been back in the area, but not for long, moving out as quickly as she had arrived. Not looking pregnant yet, if she is it will not show for some time.

We have had some wonderful leopard sightings this month, our beautiful  resident female who has been a common feature of our game drives has been seen in her usual territory around the camps and the marsh. However she tends to remain elusive during the day and mostly appears in the later evenings. A very large male leopard has been in the marsh area, perhaps he is checking on the female as a potential partner. He is a shy leopard and rarely seen.

The female leopard Olive and her two cubs are still together and well, moving from across the Talek river back onto the Olare Orok river. One of our guides had the pleasure of watching her make a kill of a young wildebeest right in front of his vehicle, amazing! There is another female leopard not very far from Olive, she too has two smaller cubs and are seen on occasion.

The Marsh Pride of lion are well ensconced near the Musiara Marsh, with so much potential prey around they are not moving very far and are spending a lot of their time together. The pride have been hunting wildebeest on a regular basis. Three of the sub adult males are still spending most of their time with one of the lionesses. She incidentally has been mating with the dominant male. There are still the nine sub adults and nine cubs of the new generation, three of which are still fairly small at about six weeks old. The smallest cubs have been coming out and following their mother around. The second pride male has been near the pride, but is looking in bad shape and is not interacting with the rest of the pride at all now. He is missing all but one tooth and is limping badly from a fight he had not long ago. It seems his days with the pride may be numbered.”

 Dolphins in Plettenberg Bay, South Africa

On our recent visit to South Africa, checking on our favorite properties, meeting the guides and happily catching a couple of World Cup matches, we took time out to go whale-watching in Plettenberg Bay.

Situated at the heart of the Garden Route in the Cape Provinces of South Africa, this pretty town is one of the best places in the world for spotting whales, especially in their winter when they come up from the freezing Antarctic waters.

We were lucky. As well as seeing Humpbacks - 3 adults and a calf, we also got surrounded by a large pod of dolphins on the way back to sure. It was an amazing sight.

This 2 hours boat trip by speed boat can be incorporated into all our Garden Route tours and is well worth it - the views of this rugged coastline alone are worth the money.

With ther recent heavy rains that led to flooding in the Samburu National Park, Tourism Officials are blaming the worlds changing climate for these unusual events. This time last year Samburu was suffering one of the worst droughts in its modern history, the game dying and local tribesmen moving their herds in an attempt to keep them alive. This year the rains have destroyed roads and homes, arriving as a downpour that raised the river overnight so high that people had to climb trees to escape its rise.

It was not just a localised event either. Over 5 inches fell in the Masai Mara Conservation area over 100 miles to the south. No damage was done, indeed it was welcomed to refresh the grasslands which have now burst forth in new growth. The issue is that rain should just not fall in February. The main rains run from April to the mid/late June, the so-called small rains coming in November.

February should be dry, with grazed grasslands offering great views of the game and the animals gathering around water holes. But so long as there is rain and the animals thrive, does it really matter? I was in Kenya 3 years ago and almost got stuck in mud during March. I was there last year in June and didn’t see a drop of rain for a whole week. The weather is changing, less predictable and more violent. But so long as there is enough rain for the local herdsmen to feed their stock and the game animals to live, better rain at the wrong time than the droughts that kill thousands.

Most people know that the Rhino is on the edge of extinction. They have read about the decline in elephant populations and how the leopard has been hunted until its numbers are dangerously low. What people do not realise is that the Lion had also faced a drastic decline over the last 50 years. Since the 19’60’s the African population has dropped from over 200,000 to less than 20,000.

Helping hand

A UK based charity - LionAid - is starting a campaign this March to raise awareness of their plight and to raise funds for the research that will help us better understand them and help in the efforts to maintain and grow their population. A series of gatherings have been organised around the UK in most major cities at which iconic statues of lions with be symbolically covered for the day, highlighting their vanishing from the wild. Full details can be found at their web site, and should you be unable to attend there is also other information there of how you might support this cause.

New year. New decade. So whats changed over the last few years in the field of safari holidays? As always in Africa its been a series of ups and downs, with the droughts of Eastern Africa taking their toll in Northern Kenya and the political situation in Zimbabwe turning one of Africas more beautiful destinations into an out-of-bounds area.

Happily, things are changing slightly in Zimbabwe. The coalition government has led to a softening of attitudes towards the country politically and the return of visitors to Victoria Falls in the far south-west of the country. It will still need more change for the rest of the country to become a destination again.

This year travel to Africa is dominated by the FIFA 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Already flights are all full to the country during June and July, with most hotels putting up their prices and insisting on 5-7 night minimum stays. If you don’t like football stay away during this time. Otherwise its a great time for a visit. Everywhere has had a good clean, roads and rail have been overhauled and the authorities are doing everything they can to ensure all visitors have a great time. They have even started pushing safaris to see the “Big 7″ rather than the traditional “Big Five”. This adds Sharks and Whales to Lion, leopard, rhino, buffalo and elephant.

In East Africa safari is a popular as it has ever been. The Masai Mara Reserve is being developped into a much larger area thanks to a change in Government policy from a couple of years ago. Individual Masai tribes were given the rights to their own land, meaning that contracts could be signed between them and lodges giving them the benefit of the wildlife viewing on their own lands. Asa a result new conservation areas and being attached to the main park giving the wildlife additional protection from poaching, the fee’s raised going into trusts for the tribes concerned.

In Tanzania, Zanzibar continues to develop into one of the most exclusive and romantic beach destinations, with more people opting to safari in Kenya before travelling onto Zanzibar for their beach stay. The properties tend to be smaller and more intimate than in other areas, a fact that makes it populat with honeymooners.

One thing hasn’t changed. Wherever you go to safari with Real Africa, you will have a holiday to remember and savour.

The following report is from Sabyinyo Silverback Lodge in Rwanda, reporting on the Gorilla groups that can be visited. For details on visiting them yourself contact us for full details or visit our main site.

In Volcanoes National Park, with bamboo continuing to shoot in the Virunga Forest, gorillas continued to feast onthis seasonal food resource and most gorilla groups did not move very much. This resulted in mostly shorter and easier treks for the visitors.
 
In the habituated gorilla groups monitored daily by researchers of Karisoke Research Station, the death of silverback Titus on 14 September continued to have knock on effects during the last half of September and early October. The old female Tuck left the group and spent most of her time alone, though she regularly approached group, she did not have much contact with it. Tragically Ihumure, a young, 4 years old infant who had been actively protected by Titus was found dead during the weeks following the death of the silverback gorilla. Postmortem examination revealed that the gorilla suffered from an internal fracture - possibly an injury made during an interaction with another gorilla group during the last few weeks of Titus’s life, when the group kept moving much more than normal. Karisoke researchers are convinced however that sentimental depression following the death of his protector also explains the rapid decline of the young gorilla, a testament to how sensitive gorilla families are. The other gorilla families are doing well and we will continue to report on their progress.  

We got sent a game update recently from the Selous Safari Camp in Selous National Park in Tanzania. In amongst an impresive list of sightings during October came this extract which caught our eye. You certainly don’t see this everyday!

“The holy grail of sightings was spotted this month by one of our guides Mwita on a morning game drive after spotting 2 lions playing football with something resembling an artichoke. On closer inspection he saw that it was a pangolin or “kakakuona” in Swahili which means the brother that watches. This extraordinary anteater is covered in an armory of scales which along with their ability to roll themselves into a tight ball gives them successful protection in the wild, as it takes considerable force to unroll them. After hours of arduous trying the Lions failed to uncoil the creature and in the process of trying they cut their tongues slightly, giving an indication of how sharp the scales are and demonstrating another of its special defence mechanisms.

Lucky that the pangolin got away in the end and it would not have been a very large meal for the lion anyway!

All over Africa local tribes have their own local suspicions about pangolins, our local Ndengereko tribe see the creature as a fortune teller. They leave out a bowl of rice, a bowl of water and a spear, the object to where the pangolin approaches will determine the fate of the year ahead. If the pangolin approaches the rice there will be plenty of food, if he approaches the water there will be plenty of rain but if he approaches the spear then the year ahead may bring troubles.”

A good picture: Composition, Colour, Class!

Everybody who goes on our safari holidays beings a camera with them. Watching animals in the real wilderness is a most memorable experience, and understandably people want a take away a memory of this. A few years ago trying to get good photos was not easy. Trying to change a film roll in the back of a bouncy and dusty safari vehicle was tricky, and to get close-up shots of some of the more elusive animals, such as leopards and jackals, meant carrying a telephoto lens with you that looked like the Hubble telespcope.

Things have changed. With the advent of digital photography most people can get some good photos. With a large digital memory you can blast off hundreds of frames, safe in the knowledge that the bad ones can be deleted and on a law of averages, some will be good. Even the smallest cameras have zooms, some of them so powerful that you can pick out a facial expression of an animal or a particularly attractive flower from the comfort of your vehicle.

Wrong end

All our drive-in safaris in East Africa are based in private vehicles. This means that not only do you get to stop whenever you want, you also never have to leave breakfast early to claim one of the few window seats. You and your party (even if there are just two of you) will have all the windows to yourselves, and uninterrupted use of the large roof hatch. Of course this will not make you a good photographer, but at least you won’t have the back of somebodies head to contend with as well.

We get send quite a few photos sent to us by our clients- several on our site are ones that they have kindly provided for us. We also occasionally get a professional photographer who supply us with some exceptional work. John Hickey-Fry has been with us now on 4 trips and we are pleased to show you his work by following the links below. Have a look and take some tips on how to do it.

Hickey-Fry Photography

Wildlife Photography

Africa

Thanks for the photos John and we are all delighted that we finally got you to see a cheetah!

One of the highlights of any visit to Cape Town in South Africa is a trip to the top of Table Mountain. From its flat summit there are stunning views down over Cape Town to the waterfront, as well as south towards the Cape of Good Hope. The most fun bit however is the Cable Car, or the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway to give it its full title. The ride takes no more than a few minutes, but gives stunning vistas out as you soar into the sky.

The downside used to be the queue for tickets, especially if you arrrived just after a bus or coach had pulled up. Now however things have changes. An online ticketing system has been recently introduced that allows you to buy tickets online and on arrival walk straight to the Cable Car. They are valid for 7 days from the day of purchase. If you  are going to be in Cape Town during the World Caup, save yourself some time and get online.

We are often asked when is the best time to go on safari. The answer depends on where you wish to go and what you are looking for.

In East Africa, primarily Kenya and Tanzania, there are two Rainy seasons. The main rains come between April and June and can be very heavy. It is generally harder to see the animals as the grass and vegetation grows high meaning the animals are hidden. Also, because of the abundance of water the animals do not congrigate around water holes but dispurse over the plains.

It tends to rain for a few hours a day rather than all day drizzle, so there is plenty of opportunity for game drives, even if the roads can become very muddy. Their are 2 advantages of this time: lower prices and a lot less people, meaning that you often safari without seeing other vehciles, something that never happens during the peak seasons.

The small rains come in October and early November, but are much lighter and should not affect your itinerary. If you wish to continue to the beach after your safari then it is best to avoid these periods, as sunbathing is tricky under clouds!

In Southern Africa, being in the southern hemisphere, the seasons are the opposite to our own. During July-August, the private reserves around Cape Town and windy and wet, sometimes even snowy! The north of the country - including the Kruger - remains warm all year, while the other safari countrie - Namibia, Botswana and Zambia all have their own wet seasons. Click on them to see the guides.