Magical Kenya

This week, Mara Camp's theatrically thrown-down gauntlet is currently worn with aplomb by Valley and Bush Camp. Hunting lions and treed leopard families show the Conservancies at their coruscating best.

Mara North, you slay us, as do the set of sorcerers (better collective required) that consistently mine from the highest carat faunal seam. George, Jimmy, Saruni et al we thank you.  I don't think you can have herds of leopards but that is what they seem to find. Regularly.

Perhaps the most inescapably African mammal is the giraffe. For much of the day they stand pensively, observing from their airy penthouse. Giraffes are such a fixture that despite their height they can be underappreciated. Not at Kicheche they are not.  

The facts: Akira, daughter of the venerable Tito, Olare Conservancy. Cub (her first)... tiny (5 weeks), Nancie Wright, seasoned Kichechian, the above title employable for both of them. Top work Charles Wandero, top work Nancie. This is spotted box office but even the most rudimentary safari fan knows how challenging it is for her to look after this beautiful A-lister, Akira nightly patrols are what she might need.

Perhaps the signature species are indulged too often. Many would disagree but I recall 20 years ago Boniface Ole Mpario (Kicheche's venerable first head guide) gasping with joy as he located two of these immaculately created young scamps race across the plains at dawn: ' Now that' he paused theatrically 'is my favourite creature'. He may have a point.

Hyenas divide opinion, that will never change but as a species their family characteristics are fascinating, second only to elephants. They are also not uncommon but that all changes when spots change to stripes (never thought I'd ever write that).

Within four hundred metres from the most easterly wing of Bush Camp, Dickson slows his cruiser. There appears to be most of East Africa's zebra grazing on the nutritious pastures North of camp. However, he has singled out one, there is something different about this animal many hundreds of metres away, a difference not noticeable to most human eyes.

Within four hundred metres from the most easterly wing of Bush Camp, Dickson slows his cruiser. There appears to be most of East Africa's zebra grazing on the nutritious pastures North of camp. However, he has singled out one, there is something different about this animal many hundreds of metres away, a difference not noticeable to most human eyes.

Twala wrinkles his Maasai nose mid-morning: ' it's too hot' he murmurs, almost as if he can smell the heat. The short grass bakes under a searing equatorial sun and the mercury nudges 30. It is too hot and moments later the first distant cumulus morphs on the horizon indicating potential drama that afternoon.

Charles Wandero is a Kicheche fixture. Charles Wandero is also man blessed with almost superhuman perception, vitality and indeed skill, so when a violent storm drills his Conservancy for hours he is not put off. However, the Ntiaktiak has swollen to a turbulent and terrifying torrent but unbowed he slides his 4WD with impossible skill to gain a view of an alpha male in the sunrise before negotiating more floodwaters (the stream had risen nine feet) to watch the two boys reluctantly cross the river.