Kenya 2023: Chapter 9 – The Rongai Pride

Lioness of the Rongai Pride

The guides use a wide array of methods to gain and deliver information in the Mara. The various tour operators have an open radio channel in which details of sightings and locations are called out all day. Additionally, the guides have phones, calling one another for premium information. Guides passing one another will often signal the other to stop by turning on their turn signal. Then they will tell each other what they have seen, with specific details about how to get there. The Mara has very few signs, and there are hundreds of roads so specific details are key. The guides of course know the Mara like a cabbie knows a city.

 It was in this way that we learned that the Rongai pride had been seen to the west, so off we went. The Rongai pride is 18 strong, including several cubs. 11 of them had been spotted leaving a kill site. We pulled up at 15:30 as they were finding a resting place in some low brush near a lugga, which is an intermittent water course, lush with vegetation and a favorite place to hide for leopards, lions, hyenas, and elephants.

 The d6 shoots at 14 frames per second, almost twice as fast as our d750s. It’s hard to get a single shot off. The pride almost completely disappeared in the brush and after shooting our fill of sleepy lions we moved on, spotting some ostrich.

“Lenny, unasemaje ‘goose’ kwa kiswahili?” (How do you say goose in Swahili?).

“We don’t have a word for goose, so ‘duck’ would probably be the closest thing, which is ‘barta’.”

“We call ostriches ‘Thunder Goose’, aka ‘barta ya ngurumo’”

Lenny laughed and Barta ya Ngurumo became a species we pointed out the rest of the trip.

(The Swahili word for ostrich is mbuni).

Barta ya Ngurumo