After several days of searching we found and followed this mother cheetah and her two sub adult cubs as they hunted through the hills of the northern Serengeti.
A storm had just started in the area and we had just dropped the side flaps of the game-viewing vehicle when we spotted this small family group. It was obvious that they were hunting, because they wasted little time in moving between the rock-strewn hillsides of the northern Serengeti. We could see that the mother cheetah meant business and so we kept our distance, positioning ourselves ahead of them.
They moved towards a small herd of impala that were sheltering in a thicket during a brief downpour. In true cheetah fashion, she slowly stalked to within striking distance of her prey and then accelerated towards the impala, sending them scattering in all directions. Missing by only a few meters, she abandoned this hunt, but shortly afterwards she flushed a scrub hare from a small thicket and was instantly in full hunt mode again.
This time she was successful and caught the unlucky hare, which brought the cubs quickly to her. They settled down to a typically clean and quiet meal, making sure that they didn’t attract any attention from any other predators in the area. As you can imagine it didn’t take long for them to finish their meal, after which they groomed one another and then the mother lead them off once again on a hunt.
This time she flushed some Oribi, a small antelope that’s common in this area, but fortunately for the Oribi she did not give chase. What she did however, was equally impressive as she sat on top of a large granite boulder and looked out over the Serengeti, giving us a spectacular scene to view and photograph.
We left her shortly before dark, but given what we had seen, we were quite sure she would have more success, either that evening or at first light the following day.