The Dreamland of Masai Mara

Probably the most awaited trip in my life which turned out to be the most exiting and worth trip I ever had. Masai Mara – I felt it as a paradise for wildlife photographers. I spend only 5 days there; I got almost 22 species of mammals and 35 species of birds. Just amazing! No words to explain my happiness!!!

It was one of my dream to visit this place as I have seen the beauty of Masai Mara in National Geographic and Animal Planet since I was a child. I felt like my most awaited dream comes true when I visited there. Myself and my friend had planned this at-least a 8 months back when I met him for the first time in Ganeshgudi. And it had been a perfect trip since we had planned it properly.

After a lot of formalities like Yellow fever and polio vaccinations which was a must to visit Africa, we had reached Kenya on 8th August 2014, from Bangalore to Mumbai and Mumbai to Nairobi. Surprisingly I met Sudhir Shivaram, my guru in Mumbai Airport. He was also flying to Kenya as he was conducting a photography workshop there. We were meeting after 3 month after out Tadoba trip.

We have reached Nairobi morning by 6.00 in the morning and finished the Migration formalities. it was pretty simple as the Visa was on arrival. Our tour operator in Kenya was waiting for us and they took us to the Rhino Camp in Masai Mara National reserve. In between we got some new guys who were going to join us for the safari. One from India, 2 from Spain and 2 from Sweden. It was a fantastic team, But myself and Alankar were the photographers among them. We were enjoyed for the next two days.

We had a plan to go to Nakuru on last day. Nakuru is very famous for Black & White Rhinos and in Masai Mara there wasn’t a fair chance for them. But we have dropped the plan since it will take 6 hours to reach there and we didn’t want to waste the time for travelling.

It took around 6 and half hours to Masai Mara from Nairobi. On the way, we stopped at a view point which was really beautiful. Our driver Paul was explaining that they believe the civilization has started from that valley. I felt like only Nairobi is a HiFi city and after that the town like Narok where we stopped for lunch was a normal town more it looked like a village to me with less human population. The road was really beautiful. When we reached the reserve range, i have noticed the flora and fauna it was really different from the typical Indian habitat. We have thick forests more but it was a grassland of 2000 squire kilometer.

We reached our camp by 4.30, it was late; but we decided to enter into the park directly. I had my Nikon and Sony bodies with Telephoto and Wide angle mounted. Mostly I have used Nikon for closeups and Sony for habitat. In the first day, within one hour we have spotted a two Lions. The first time I have seen a Lion on natural habitat. My god; it was really exiting. We couldn’t spend more time on the first day and it was raining after 6.00

The second day was a super lotto for us. My most targeted species, cheetah, that too with her 6 cubs. Ohhh my god it was a visual treat. We didn’t get a perfect shot of that because of harsh light in the afternoon, but of course managed to take some decent shots. The same day we got Lion and Leopard too, but the habitat shots.  We have visited the Mara river on the same day where the actual migration happens. The animals from Tanzania will cross the Mara river and come to Kenya during July & August months which is called the Great Migration. Unfortunately we couldn’t see that since the migration had already happened. The next two days we got lot of birds. Birding was difficult; people wanted to see the big cats and we could realize that the co passengers were not much interested in birds. The last day I have seen cheetah hunt. Though we didn’t get the closeup shots, we have enjoyed those wonderful moments.

I had a list of animal which I need to get and only Hyena was missing in that. For my luck the last day when we were coming back to the camp we sow a Hyena. It was 6.30 and there wasn’t enough light. But still got some decent shots- Thanks to my Nikon D7100; the ISO performance is too good in this camera.

I was very happy that there was a big bump up in my wild catalog. 22 verities of mammals and 35 verities of birds. Woow, it was amazing. I think I got good shots for most of the species I have targeted. Here the species list which I got;

African Elephant
African Lion
African Leopard
Cheetah
Spotted Hyena
Black-backed Jackal
Side-striped Jackal
Hippo
Banded Mongoose
Gazelle
Wild Beast
Giraffe
Zebra
Baboon
Kombu
Buffalo
Dick Dick
Impala
Oribi
Topi
Pumba
Waterbuck

Hamerkop
Ostrich male
Ostrich female
Yellow-fronted Canary
Little bee eater
Speckled mousebird
Yellow-billed Oxpecker
Lappet-faced Vulture
White-backed Vulture
Hooded Vulture
Ruppell’s Griffon Vulture
A Saddle-billed Stork
African Crowned Stork
adjutant stork
Lilac-breasted Roller
Marshall Eagle
Tawny Eagle
Fiscal Shrike
Superb starling
Greater Blue-eared Glossy-Starling
Ruppell’s Starling
Black-lored Babbler
African Common Bulbul
Fork-tailed Drongo 
Magpie Shrike
Purple Grenadier
Rufous-Naped Lark
Yellow-browed Sparrow
Sooty chat male
Sooty chat female
Guinea Fowl
Red-necked Francolin
Egyptian Goose
Brown-tailed Rock Chat 
Lesser Striped Swallow

I had 200 GB of data with me at the end of the day. I know that it will be a pain to sort out the shots and gonna take lot of time to process them. It was bit disappointing that we couldn’t see migration. When we reached there the animals had already migrated to Masai Mara from Tanzania. It was a miscalculation from our side and decided to go early next year around mid of July.

I have been travelling for a long time in Indian jungles, but this was a really different experience. I took 40 safaris in Bandipur to see my first tiger. Here I have spotted a Big cats within an hour and they were plenty in number. While coming back we were started planning for the next year. Next year we are planning to cover Egypt too, which is another spot I don’t want to miss. Our flight to India got delayed for 6 hours while coming back. It wasn’t a problem for me; I felt like I was in a wonderland; a trip to remember for lifetime…