Rain, grown-up rain, clear skies then 1500+ metres of altitude going to work on the saturated short-grass of Naboisho Conservancy produces mist .... a photographer's dream. However, lions playing over their meal .... killers in the mist .... do not earn the garlands this week.

Those five cheetah boys need scant introduction having patrolled the plains and Conservancies of the Mara with impunity for almost four years. To see them perform takes time, hard time, proper time as they have taken sloth to a fatiguing level of frustration.

Acres of caustic prose have been written about 2020, Spot of the Week has no intention of adding to this pile of cynicism. Right now a savage storm is ripping across the Mara Conservancies leavening already fertile grasslands. In Laikipia lions are dragging down a buffalo, before parading across the highlands in front of both Mt Kenya and some indifferent white rhino.

In terms of wilderness, a year is a short period. In terms of just about everything else in 2020 it seems like an eternity. Throughout these troubled times Kicheche has been overwhelmed by not only the people who have jumped through the many hoops to visit, but also the many heartfelt messages of support to say nothing of the thousands of dollars raised for the Conservancies.

The Five Musketeers are now four. Yesterday four of them turned on the remaining one and gave it a hell of a shoeing. Sadly it appears that the unfortunate recipient may have lost an eye; what it certainly has lost is three years of companionship.

Any Olympic gold medal winner will tell you that winning is hard but retaining is almost impossible. Kicheche Bush Camp has just retained its ECO-Gold award for the fourth year in succession, the Sir Stephen Redgrave of safari pennants. This has been attained despite incredibly difficult trading circumstances.