Masai Mara October 2022

Date 2024/03/13 14:26:53 by Darren Shaun Donovan

I once heard the question, “how do you get better photographs?". and the answer astonished me….”go to better places”. Well you don’t get much better than the Masai Mara, for incredible wildlife photography.

How do you describe the Masai Mara? Wide, undulating grassland, savannah, green veins of riverine forests along the river and drainage lines cut through the golden expanses of grass. Combine this with a huge sky and the sheer volume of wildlife, and you have the quintessential African Safari experience. This is the landscape that entertained us for 5 nights, at Olapa tented Camp in the north-eastern part of the Masai Mara National Park. The camp is set in the riverine forest and the entrance to the camp opens to the plains.

On our ten drives from this fantastic little camp, we encountered the stars of the Masai Mara show. One of the highlights we had was encountering the Topi pride of Lions, who have the core of their territory in Olapa. The pride currently consists of 23 pride members and 3 pride males. A pride this size gets hungry quickly, and we were lucky enough to witness the pride make 2 kills, 3 Warthogs on one afternoon and a Buffalo on our last evening. We also came across a mating pair from the Topi pride as well as another female introducing her 2-month-old cubs to the pride on our last morning. This pride really gave us a lot of entertainment on our doorstep. We also had several Cheetah sightings, with the bulk of our Cheetah sightings being of a mother with 3 sub-adult cubs. We were lucky enough to see her hunt a Thompsons Gazelle on one morning. But she popped up on several occasions. A lone male was also moving around the area of the lodge, who also provided us with several fantastic photographic sightings. The leopard was a bit harder to find this time around, but we still managed to have 3 quality Leopard sightings. These were mostly around the larger Talek river, which runs through the middle of the Masai Mara.

Add plenty of general game, Topi’s, Thompsons Gazelle, Elephant, Jackal and Giraffe all in great photographic settings for a wide variety of techniques and outcomes. This was an amazing week in an amazing place.

 

 

All images & text by Darren Shaun Donovan