Mistaken identity

One of the prerequisites for working with wildlife is that you can tell different creatures apart, and that you can recognise different species from different angles in different light.

Every day, we go out to find lions, perhaps with a tip off, perhaps with just a hunch, and we look very hard at shadows under bushes for a flick of a tail, or a single paw in the air. Sometimes we are guided by the gaze of giraffes, topi or zebras, but these creatures are also quite happy to stare at nothing in the heat of the day.

Soon, our desire to find something, anything interesting leads our brains to imagine shapes in rocks, fallen trees, grass waving in the wind. There are hundreds of rocks in the Mara shaped exactly like the head of a lion, and no doubt these same rocks get misidentified over and over again by new visitors to the area.

Animals can play tricks too. Warthogs are such weird looking animals that they take on all sorts of characteristics far away in shimmering heat. A warhog grazing can for a moment appear just like a baboon the other way round, or end on from a distance like a male lion looking down his nose. Hartebeest are exactly the same colour as lions, and their white rump and pale brown fur from far away can lead the less experienced to claim ‘there’s a lion!’

Recently, things have been getting out of hand. A flock of sheep was identifdied as a large group of hyenas, while some elephants behind a termite mound were pronounced to be lions. A warthog even took on the persona of a buffalo for a few short seconds. And that’s in daylight. At night with the thermal and starlight cameras we have to develop a whole new range of ID skills as completely nocturnal animals show their faces. Aardvarks walk a bit like hyenas, so at first caused confusion then amazement when we realised that we had at least four of these extremely secretive animals bumbling around the car digging sniffing and chasing each other.

Cubs

The last few nights have delivered varying degrees of success with various groups of lions, mostly mothers helping their sub-adult offspring to hunt. We have tried to follow them through luggas, swamps and thick scrub, but still achieved lots of lovely hunting moments (all of which failed). The kids are full of confidence and excitement, running this way and that, while mum tries various tactics to get one of her cubs to actually make contact with an animal. In these dark conditions, the lions can’t see the prey but have to locate them by scent or sound. And the prey can clearly hear heavy lion footfalls in the grass unless the lion is very careful. This is where mum’s patience and experience count.

Now the moon is waxing, the dynamics change completely. With even a quarter moon, the wildlife can see each other pretty well, and the lion response to this is either to sleep until the moon sets or revert to more daytime like hunting methods - hiding in long grass - if there is any.

Last night we met up with two lovely experienced females and their 6 tomcat sized cubs. When mum told the cubs to stay put they did, and the two mothers set about stalking a mixed herd of topi, gazelles and wildebeest. Or so it seemed. After some protracted stalking and waiting about, one of the girls charged at the herd, who in the light of a quarter moon saw her coming in plenty of time to make an easy escape. It seemed a pointless effort. She really didn't try very hard. Or was she hoping to drive the prey towards her waiting sister?

The other female mysteriously didn’t seem at all interested - because as we found out, she was already with a dead topi, completely untouched, which they must have killed earlier in the day. Both mothers and all the cubs moved in for a quiet dinner under the moon and stars. And the cubs got their bed time milk before all dropping into deep sleep.

The Sky At Night

Here's a single frame from the starlight camera last night - a dark starry night ie most of the stars obscured by clouds and thin haze over the others reducing their brightness

Most days we set off about 4pm, to find our lions and film whatever we can of their daytime behaviour (you guessed it - mostly sleeping).

Just around sunset, hungry lions will usually move a little to get a better view of the surrounding plains. If they have cubs like the two mothers we followed last night, this is when the youngsters run about chasing, watching anything that moves, playing with stuff they find. Sadly, last night these items consisted of a black plastic bag and a small item of clothing. I’m sure nobody was eaten, but clearly the world has changed for us as well as lions.

Not until darkness closes in do the lions make their move. By this time, we’ve changed from daytime camera to night time cameras. Daytime camera: HD video camcorder - ie one that you put on the tripod, look through the viewfinder and press the button if you like the picture. Night time cameras: a whole other story. For various reasons the cameras we have to use will only record to computers. And laptops aren’t fast enough, so we have two desktop computers in the car running off inverters and car batteries. To see the images, we have a variety small computer monitors placed in strategic positions. The cabling of all this electronic hardware always starts off with the best of intentions but by the end of the night it usually resembles a Gordian knot. We’re working on the cable discipline.

Before we can follow the lions Stanley needs to get his night goggles correctly adjusted, and we have to mark our position on the GPS so at the worst we can back track. Once landmarks disappear into the gloom, it is very easy to become disoriented, especially if a layer of clouds covers the stars.

In this kind of darkness, the Starlight camera can’t see very far without infra red light. Even then, its amazing ability to see animals is completely overshadowed by the thermal camera which allows us to identify lions or hyenas up to three kilometres away. It should therefore be easy keeping up with the lions.

A typical dark night lion hunt will start with a bit of a move, then a bit of a rest, wait and listen, followed by another bit of a move. This night after a couple of starts the two mothers heard something in the bushes and moved quickly towards it. We were in a bad position, and had to go out up onto the hill to see what was going on. A herd of buffalo were coming down to drink, and there in front of them were our two lionesses. One of the buffalo smelt a cat and gave an alarm at which point the entire herd came charging out of the lugga.

Buffalo routinely chase lions in daylight, and present a real danger to the cubs. These two mothers were not starving and so would never attack a healthy buffalo in a herd returning instead to the waiting cubs. This place, with its multitude of dry river beds, luggas and bushes is hard enough to navigate in daylight. Even with the thermal camera we soon lost the lions and the buffalo. So we moved up to the place we now call Lazy Boy Hill (after two lazy male lions) to see if we could find the Monico bunch - or at the least film a bit of starry scenery.

Once I give my eyes time to adjust to the gloom, the beauty of the milky way over the plains never ceases to astound me and is always a small compensation for having lost the lions - again.

The Mara Seven

Suppertime in the Mara

Lion Pride

A month ago when we left there were encouraging signs that the drought was over. Rain had greened-up lots of plains in the Mara, especially the North West. Hardly a drop fell since we left, and the Olare Orok Conservacy is very dry - but there is still good drinking water, so plenty of healthy looking zebras, wildedbeeste, topi and gazelles are hanging around. And there are also plenty of dead cows in various states of decomposition. Many of cattle herds here have been weakened by long treks from other areas in Kenya, where the drought was still having a huge effect. Yesterday, heavy rain hit Nairobi and surrounds, while rain was visible to us over the Northern Serengeti. Hopefully the drought is finally over.

What effect the dryness, all these cattle and accompanying people are having on the lions is hard to say. There have been spearings as well as poisonings, and everyone reports fewer lions in areas where they were common.

The day before yesterday we set off north to Maternity Plain with the help of Sara and Emma Blackburn of the Mara Predator Project to find The Group of Seven; one 3 year old male born in that area, one adult female of unknown provenance, her four 18 month old cubs, 2 boys 2 girls, as well as a smaller adopted cub. This kind of pride doesn’t fit the normal stable lion pride stereotype, but seems to be more common here at the moment, and mature males are thin on the ground.

The Group of Seven set off to towards wildebeeste herds at dusk, and the daughters didn’t disappoint, randomly chasing anything that moved, while mum held back as if to teach them the lesson of patience. The group spread out, chased all the animals away, then reformed for another go. Second time round, the 2 girls produced the same result and all the wildlife legged it.

The night was moonless and partly cloudy, conditions in which neither prey nor lions can see very far, and sound and scent become more important. The lions roughly locate some prey by sound and spread out in that direction. This time, mum decided that playtime was over and had to show the cubs how it was actually done. She knew more or less where the cubs were, and where a sitting herd of wildebeest was quitely chewing its collective cud. Mum made a huge loop around to the other side, careful to keep her footfalls silent, still not sure exactly where the wildebeeste were.

Now the wildebeeste were between her and the cubs who appeared to be waiting for something to happen. Mum charged straight into the middle of the panicking herd, and downed an adult, cheetah-style with a flick to the back legs. It was practically dead by the time the first cub arrived. An hour later, the Group of Seven had devoured the lot, with surprisingly little fighting.

Let’s hope that in time, despite living in a heavily grazed and human inhabited area, the Group of Seven can become a stable and successful pride.

Touching the Trophy

The memory of sitting in a hot spring surrounded by Autumn forest and mountains in the Grand Tetons National Park is rapidly losing ground to the maelstrom that usually precedes a big filming trip. Engineering always progresses at exactly the right speed to be ready about 10 minutes before the last case needs to be closed. Strange bits of metal are concocted to solve new problems, make new cameras easier to use or allow the operator to actually focus this time. Things that failed on the previous trip and should have been fixed weeks ago are found still in their cases - exactly as they were packed for the journey home. We have to plead with busy engineers to help us. Couriers are constantly coming to the door with new cables, or special electronic boxes, torches, special batteries etc etc. This is the reality of modern wildlife photography. Budgets, schedules, new projects demand immediate attention while automated sales calls dumbfound us with their complete irrelevance.

During all of this it was necessary to gather the Smalltalk Diaries team to come and touch the Jackson hole trophy themselves - and drink some champagne. James Taggart, Claire Berry, Charlotte Jones, Simon Sleath and Will Dohrn all managed to come at short notice, while Hilary Prosser, Charlotte Crosse, Richard Higgs, Ben Ward, Caroline Norris, Richard Webb, Fiona Mackenzie and Jonathan Jones will all have to come and touch it another day - which means we can have another little party later.

The last case was closed yesterday at midnight ready for the 5am drive to Heathrow.
Cases checked in - ahhhh - 1 hour of peace with nothing to do but read the paper - where I discover that Gordon Brown and Barack Obama aren’t very popular, but Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Tomorrow the Masai Mara, where the problems of rich economies in the North and West may seem very far away - but sadly for the wildlife are very relevant.

Crossing Fingers Works

It must do because Smalltalk Diaries Changelings won the prize for Best Short Film, a fantastic result for a small company like Ammonite (see winners). This year, Jackson Hole Film Festival had a record number of entries, over 400, representing the best wildlife and environmental films of the last 2 years from all over the world. The surprise ‘best of festival’ was an incredible and moving film by Patrick Rouxel called 'Green', made entirely without broadcaster support, and lacking any narration. The film is free to view at http://greenfilm.free.fr/

After endless (mostly very productive) meetings, long chats about the state of broadcasting, the state of the planet, fascinating seminars and talks, it’s already time to pack up and head home for a few frantic days of prepping for the 5 week Masai Mara shoot that is almost upon us.