Masai Mara 2012, Leopard

We had seen lion, buffalo, elephant and cheetah. When Rafael, the guide and driver in the safari, asked us what did we want to order we all said that we wanted the leopard. After making several stops, Rafael drove the car behind another car next to a bushes. A message was passed in very low voice that there was a leopard under one of the bush. We all strained our neck trying to find it. The first thing that got into my view was a bloody upper quadrant of an animal carcass with its long neck still attached to it. We then saw it was biting the neck of a gazelle.

We watch a little while as it ate its prey. For the time being more safari car had arrived, and the place looked a little too crowd with all the spectators. It opened its large mouth and clenched on the throat of its prey, and started clumsily removing the remaining disintegrated carcass held together by skin. It walked deeper into the bushes, when it reappeared again, it was no longer with the carcass. It must have hide it somewhere for  the next meal.

It was probably seeking a nice shady place to rest after having a big meal. I noticed that it walked with a very peculiar gait that looked like trotting with the diagonal limbs moving forward, but both limbs on one side were raised high above ground and moved close to one another.

It rested on the shade of another bush for a while, and then moved again. The third resting place seemed provided more privacy with a lot of low hanging leaves, but it still didn't satisfy with it, and crossed an open grass land to another larger bushes. There was a massive black object under a shade. And a closer looked turned out to be a big hippo. It was close to noon time, and the sun was really shining hot. The hippo moved deeper into the bushes as we got closer, and we circled the bushes a few more times before we left. We never saw them again.


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