Lewa Wildlife Conservancy

Part II – Cats

This year the abundance of elephants and their calves seemed to be the theme in Kenya. However, we were also fortunate to see a few cats as well. There weren’t many sightings, but what we did see was pretty wonderful.

CHEETAHS

Just before sunset one afternoon our guide found one of the cheetahs that we had been looking for. He had just made a kill of a Hartebeest, a fairly large antelope. The male cheetah had brought it down alone which was quite a feat.

It was too big to move off to another location and the kill itself had tired out the cheetah. He was staying close to it while he rested hoping that no other predator would come along and try to take it away from him. We weren’t able to stay long enough to see how things turned out for him.

(Click on an image to enlarge)

LIONS

This juvenile lion was part of a group of lionesses and their cubs. Unfortunately, when we found them they were enjoying an afternoon nap back in the brush so our photo opportunities were limited. I got this shot and hoped that we would run across them again out in the open.

At The Playground

One of the highlights of our time at Lewa Conservancy was watching three juvenile lions playing on a fallen tree. They, their mother and her sister had been spotted at this playground before and we were fortunate enough to find them there. It was as though mom was treating the cubs to a trip to the park where they could play on the jungle gym. They had such a great time running around on the tree limbs chasing each other and play fighting. It was great fun to watch.

At the end they had worn each other out. The two adults kept watch below the tree and when the cubs tired out mom decided it was time to go. The following images are just a few of the ones I took. I was having as much fun watching them as I was photographing them.

Thanks so much for joining me. If you like you can leave a message at the bottom of this page or contact me directly at cheryl@cherylschneiderphotography.com. I’d love to hear your comments. If you haven’t done so, please sign up at the top of the blog to be notified of future posts

This Post Has 3 Comments

  1. Just love the exhausted lion cub draped over the fallen tree limb – that’s illustrative of how much effort they put into “play”

    1. I’m not sure how long they had been at it when we came along, but they were hard at it for at least an hour while we watched. It was really something special to be able to watch them! 😊

  2. I love seeing how similar animals play is to humans. They experience pure joy in their youth.

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