Hot Feline Mess! Serengeti!

To start our last full day in the park, we rose early and headed towards where we had seen the unattended lion cubs the day before.  We couldn't find the cubs, but as we were driving away Mike spotted the lionesses returning.

The lionesses were calling out, also looking for their cubs.  This went on a for a while, and we started to think that the cubs may have been attacked - apparently hyenas, leopards and wild dogs love the opportunity to kill the lion cubs if they find them unattended.

We followed the lionesses, past the point we had seen the cubs before all the while on the lookout - sharing their desire to find the cubs and see the pride reunited.  And then, out of the grass, we saw ten cubs running towards their mothers!  The reunion was really special, lots of nuzzling and jumping around by the cubs - we will post a video of it all when we have more bandwidth and time!

As we followed the reunited pride down the road, the cubs continued to call out to their mothers - hungry and obviously disappointed that the mothers had returned empty handed with no food for them.  Megan was heartbroken that the cubs were so obviously crying with hunger.  The sight of this pride, just after sunrise, was truly something special.

Eventually the lions headed off into the tall grass, and we decided to continue our morning adventure.

After returning to the camp for lunch, we headed out again in the early afternoon wondering how it could top the morning's experience.  Our scepticism was unfounded ...

Coming across a herd of elephants, our guide Moses suggested we leave the elephants and head further down the river.  What a great call on his part ... we found a cheetah and her cubs resting under a tree.  We spent more than two hours watching these cheetahs play, climb the tree and drink.  When entering the park, Megan had joked that her must see was a cheetah with cubs - how lucky we were!

Finally, the family of cheetahs moved off into the high grass, and we started to head back towards the camp feeling like we were the luckiest tourists in the park!

After a brief encounter with an old bull elephant who forced us to reverse back up the road, and eventually move off to the side to let him pass - HE wasn't going to get off the road! - we came across another cat encounter ...

We spotted another leopard, this time with a fresh looking kill, up a tree.  Again, he was a bit too far away for our lens to do it justice, but through the binoculars we watched him devouring his prey.  At one point, it almost fell from the tree and he grabbed it and with apparent ease flicked it up in the air, then carried it higher up into the branches.

He was in the tree on the right below - can you see him?

After we left the leopard and drove back to camp, Mike spotted one last and really special cat - the Serval.  It was sitting on a termite mound, but by the time we had go the camera out, it was gone.  Still, in the one day we had seen four of the felines in the park!

The next morning on our way out of the park, Moses decided to pull off the main road to a small watering hole - he had a hunch there would be something there.  And we were treated to a nice large male lion, chilling by the water, yawning and then moving away through the brush, calling for his pride.

Driving away, we thought surely this would be it for us - there couldn't be more.  Then Mike spotted a female on top of one of the kopjes (small granite mounds that protrude from the plains).  It was straight out of the Lion King!  Driving around the mound, we heard some really young cubs crying, and spotted them and their mother hiding in a cave!

We loved our time in the Serengeti - it is truly the land of the big cats!  Up next ... Rwanda and the mountain gorillas!