The Golden Hour on the Rift Plains

  1. http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/07/12/the-golden-hour/

First off, before the best bits, I should say that there’s a bug in the Word Press system, so dear followers and followees, please check your SPAM for any comments from me or other afflicted bloggers and (only if you want to of course) upspam them. Otherwise, on most blogs, my comments are currently going straight to SPAM. It’s a cunning way to stop us from talking to each other. Curses on the joyless little bug that is doing this.

Now for some late afternoon views of big cats and other animals in the Maasai Mara.  This photo shows just how easily lion conceal themselves in quite short grass. Here, as sunset approaches they are becoming watchful, although they could scarcely care less about us watching them. Soon it will be time to go hunting.

Scan-130520-0011

*

Mara lioness 2

Just to the right of the lioness is another lion. It makes you appreciate how intrepid are the Maasai who daily have to graze their herds, and also fetch firewood and water out on these plains. (For more about this you can read my short story ‘Flight’ HERE. It was one of the Bath Short Story Award winners and tells the story of a Maasai girl’s life in this extraordinary land.) Doubtless the herders keep an eye on where particular prides are spending their sleeping hours, but even so, walking into a laid-out lion seems a distinct and chilling possibility.

*

Scan-130520-0017

Scan-130520-0018

Scan-130520-0021

Mara at dawn 2

Mara grassland 4 (2)