Good times at Lamai

Guests at Lamai saw a crossing yesterday. Heavy rain the last few days seems to have brought the wildebeest back and they have been around in force with herds visible in front of the lodge almost all the time. We’ve also had some nice morning visits from a herd of ellies one day, a herd of buffalo the next and a herd of eland the day after. We watched a hyena chase some wildebeest two mornings ago. Last night, we watched a leopard and hyena walk in front of the rooms. Lions pulled down two wildebeest just off the kopje a couple of days ago.
 

 
 


















Picture by Kennedy John

The highlight for me so far was when I went out on a game drive. We came across a pride of lions with a leopard in a tree about 200 meters away and a fresh zebra carcass fifty meters after the leopard at the bottom of a korongo. A lioness came over and was about to chase the leopard up the tree when a buffalo decided to join the party and chased the lion away (who then went and started eating the zebra). 

Guest post from Matt, our Kiba Point manager enjoying a change of scene  

Leopard stand-off at Lamai

Some recent guests to Lamai, the Pleusses from Switzerland, witnessed a standoff between a female leopard and a lioness.

The leopard finally gave in but not before putting on a good display... Many thanks to them for these amazing pictures.

Crossings at Lamai Serengeti

Crossings are happening once or twice a day and there are still plenty more to come. 

Images with thanks to the Boyd/Hodgson family

The Boyd/Hodgson family recently came to stay at Lamai for 3 days and had some extraordinary sightings in the area. Their first day they watched a forty minute wilderbeest river crossing over the Mara River. As their guide, Festo Msofe, said, “They completely blocked the river, there were about 3,000 wilderbeest creating four or five lines of nearly 20 metres wide. We saw a lioness take down two wilderbeest in the space of fifteen minutes, right under our noses.  Their photographs speak for themselves...”

We asked Nomad guide Festo what he liked about working in Lamai Serengeti...

“The location of the camp has the best view in the area, good game is never far from here. You can see the migration approaching the Mara River if you know where to look.  It is also a great area for cats, beautiful flowers, Topi, Eland, Oribi...”

Updates from Lamai Serengeti

In camp last night we had a pair of mating leopards about 500metres from the dining room, giving us a noisy show on top of a kopje. Each night this week we have had a symphony of lion, leopard, hyena and jackal.

Doctors from England, Jeanne and Andrew Dott have come back for their second safari with Nomad and were happy to find themselves back with their guide from last year, Ole Masaa, who honoured them with a wilderbeest crossing  of around 10,000 across the Mara River, about 7km from Lamai Camp. The crossing lasted about half an hour without any casualties.

Wildees preparing to cross, picture with thanks to Jeanne Dott

Jeanne and Andy also saw the big five during their stay at Lamai, it is their first time to see a Black Rhino.

Our other guests, Irene and Rolf Pleuss, again returning to Nomad for their second safari with us, on their first day driving to camp from the airstrip, saw what their guide, Fadhili, described as one of the biggest he’s ever seen, a group of around 100,0000 wildebeest.

They also watched an unusual sighting of a lioness and leopard fighting over their territory on the Wogakuria kopjes near camp. The leopard finally surrendered her kopje to the lioness.

About 2km from camp they saw the Black Rhino marking his territory and chasing away the noisy wilderbeests.

We asked one of our Northern guides, Fadhili “Fazo” Msanga, what he particularly liked about working in the Northern Serengeti...

“It is not so crowded and there is an amazing variety of game and landscape. The rooms at Lamai are well camouflaged and all of them face right out into the wilderness, each room gives you the feeling of being in your own private world.”

“If you want to shake hands with a lion, this is the place to come!”