Kenya 2023: Chapter 17 – Lioness on the Hunt

 A gorgeous  lilac-breasted roller

At about 14:30, Lenny and Greg spotted something on the hillside in the distance, a speck above other specks. It was a lone lioness atop a weathered termite mound. The Mara is dotted with hillocks and mounds of varying ages and sizes and predators like lions and cheetahs use these positions to scope out prey hidden in the tall grass. We followed her as she went from hill to hill. We’re certain she was tracking a warthog we had seen just a few minutes earlier. 

 We managed to find a position along the road right next to a mound and she eventually made her way to us, without paying us any mind. Her body looked like it could have been carved from wood or a hardened sandstone. She was every bit of 400 pounds of a killing machine. When she dipped below the mounds and into the golden grasslands, she was invisible. Occasionally we would see a tuft of a black ear or a swish of a tail and would track her again, driving along the myriad of tracks and roads in the area. We were alone. There was not another soul for as far as we could see.

Throughout our time in Kenya, Ed used an app called GPS Essentials to drop pin points of where we were. Cell service and speed have significantly improved since we were there in 2019, so it was easy to get GPS coordinates. Marking points would allow us to georeference our images and retrace our footsteps from each day. It was one thing we certainly missed on the first trip. We wanted to be able to pick out where we had been (as with the lion kill), but most of it was conjecture. While 95% of the points were within a reasonable distance to the actual location, several were well outside the park limits.

After almost an hour of tracking this lioness, she disappeared into the grass and although we attempted to reconnect, we were unable.