Simon King - Diary

As the last few diaries have been on the brief side, you’re in for it now!  Brace yourselves!!!!

Once the final elements of post-production were completed on our Shetland Diaries series, I was off to warmer climes to host a ten day safari which helped raise money for TUSK, one of the charities I support. I enjoyed the company of some wonderful guests who had given extremely generously to the trust, and who, despite travelling to Kenya on many occasions, had never visited the Mara. Like so many who have the opportunity to pick and choose anywhere in the world they can explore, they had been put off by stories heard or read about traffic jams around lions, dodgy management and average facilities. I am delighted to say that we managed to dispel all those myths during a four night stay in the lovely Rekero Camp on the Talek river. The Mara delivered as it always does on so many levels, kicking off with a view of a leopard in broad daylight (a female known as Olive) when we drove the short distance from the Olkiombo airstrip to the camp. We kept the cat count and contact up during our stay with lion, cheetah, serval and caracal. The lions we spent most time with was the Olkiombo pride, which has recently undergone a small population explosion. Some of the charming contact we had was spent watching a lioness and her two week-old cubs deep in a shady thicket. At one point, she was joined by one of the other females in the pride who also had cubs which were a little older. The youngsters lagged behind their mum and had to make up the distance over open ground unattended. They did so with the funniest ‘belly-to-the-floor-you-can’t-see-me….right’ crawl I’ve seen for ages! Getting views of the caracal was pretty special too. These cats can be soooo secretive and hard to spot in long grass, but we managed to watch one, close to camp. It was very relaxed and eventually came into the open which afforded us views of its stunning Cleopatra eye-liner. We spent a bit of time with Honey’s boys, the three male cheetahs that dominate this part of the Mara and also with a female cheetah and her 8 week old cub (a cat I would be spending a great deal of time with, soon after).

A delicious morning spent with another leopard, Olive’s daughter Binti, rounded off the cat contact, but the whole stay was peppered with the natural riches the Mara has to offer, from elephant to giraffe and a seemingly endless variety of birds.

From Kenya’s southern border, we travelled north to Ol Pejeta Conservancy. It is here that Toki, the orphaned cheetah which I helped to hand rear and reintroduce to the wild, still lives. The temptation to visit him was enormously strong, but first we were to meet some new arrivals. We were taken by the head of wildlife and security, Batian Craig, to some holding pens which housed some VIPs. Four northern white rhino have recently come into the care of Ol Pejeta, having been gifted from Dvur Kralove zoo in the Czech Replubic with a view to encouraging a wild breeding programme for these incredibly rare creatures. The physical differences between these and the more common southern white rhino were subtle, but visible at close quarters. Hairy fringes to the ears, an erect head posture, apparently more slender legs and a manner reminiscent of the spritely black rhino rather than the sometimes lumbering southern white. This attitude was borne out by a recent incident where the adult male in the group had taken a dislike to one of the gates on his holding pen and with a single swipe form his head and horn, burst it in two! When I say gate, I am talking about a structure built from 3cm thick planks and steel. It was a sobering reminder of the great power in these beautiful creatures.

Our hosts in Ol Pejeta were Alex and Diana Hunter at their bush camp. Simple and very hospitable, with Alex taking us on drives around the reserve, which, since the year I spent there settling Toki into his new home has seen some marvellous developments. Richard Vigne, the Chief Executive Officer of the conservancy gave us an enlightening presentation (despite nursing a horrendous cold) which told of the marriage of livestock management and wildlife conservation on the Conservancy. Herds of cattle are raised commercially, alongside the white and black rhino, elephant, lion leopard and cheetah. Indeed, the grazing activity of the cattle together with the effect of the carefully rotated night corralling of the herds, significantly improves the pasture to the benefit of all the herbivores, whether domestic or wild. The result was a noticeably healthy population of zebra, (common and the endangered Grevy’s) gazelles and other grazers.

We stayed just two nights but I simply could not leave without news of Toki the cheetah. We visited the huge predator proof section of the reserve where he has been living, with the hope of setting eyes on him from the vehicle. I had been told that he had not been seen recently and was very keen to ensure he was well. I had also been informed that the very development in his behaviour which we’d all been hoping for had at last kicked in. He was, according to reports from Stephen Yasoi, the ranger who helped us raise him from a cub, and who still works on Ol Pejeta, now afraid of people. This news was music to my ears. Though we always hoped he would eventually shun contact with humans, we felt that having been hand reared by us, he might always feel comfortable around them. A strict policy of zero intentional contact had been in place for well over a year, and it had paid off. The last time Stephen had seen him, Toki was over 150 metres away, and had run in the opposite direction when he’d spotted Stephen. That, however, was over two months ago!

I entered the boma (fenced area) and was shown his footprints in soil near the perimeter by the chap who monitored the fence on a daily basis. The trouble was, what I saw were the footprints of a large male leopard, not a cheetah! So much for the predator proof bit!! I was immediately deeply concerned for Toki’s safety, knowing that leopards can kill cheetahs. Batian mobilised the security team who made a systematic sweep of the whole 4,000 acres of the Boma. After two days he was seen, running away from them, alive, well, and fat from having eaten his most recent kill of a zebra. I was sorry not to have set eyes on him personally, but deeply gratified to learn that he was in good condition and living as a wild cheetah should. We do have ideas for his continued development and opportunities for the future which I am discussing with all of those who are, and have been, instrumental in his welfare.

Next stop was Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, the private reserve where Toki and his brother Sambu were raised, and where we lived for so many months during their early years. Here we caught up with the coalition of three male cheetah that I had filmed killing ostrich for the series Life, and who at one point were almost responsible for Toki’s demise. (See Oct/Nov 2004). They really are the most powerful looking cheetahs I have ever come across, and still rule the roost in Lewa, despite being at least 12 years old or possibly older. It was super for me to catch up with friends on Lewa and hear how things have been going. The management policy here is truly visionary, combining community initiatives with conservation and, I think, shines light on the way forward for conservation strategies in so many parts of the planet.

Our final stop was Serara in Namunyak, a lovely camp in the hills to the north of Lewa, owned and run by Piers and Hilary Bastard in a wilderness area that is also pioneering conservation projects which run in harmony with the Masai community. It was my first visit to the area, and a welcome one, since it was from this region that Toki and Sambu originally came when their mother was killed by a lion. The landscape was spectacular, with towering hills over lush scrub and acacia forest. The waterhole below the camp was visited by lesser and greater kudu, as well as elephants which moved with their customary gentle hush through the vegetation. We watched a harrier hawk raiding weaver nests and innumerable birds that were peculiar to the dry bush country, as well as the elegant gerenuk, a gazelle which looks like a mix between a giraffe and an impala.

After the safari I spent a fairly intense couple of weeks in the UK finishing off a book I have written about our experiences in Shetland, and then it was back to Kenya to host another safari. We were based for the whole time in the Mara and I was joined by 6 guests in Rekero camp. We had the most marvellous time, once again being treated to the riches offered by this gem of a place, enjoying first class contact with all the cats (apart from African wild cat) found in the Mara.

Once I had bid my guests farewell, I stayed on and was joined by Marguerite and Savannah for what was to be a month long stay to film cheetahs for the Disney movie, African Cats. My brief was a dream; to film super slow motion shots of cheetahs hunting. This kind of project ticks all the boxes for me. We were living as a family in one of my favourite places on earth, watching one of my favourite creatures on earth, and trying to film them doing something dynamic in a way which had so far never been properly seen. Of course, I have filmed cheetahs hunting on hundreds of occasions, and often in slow motion. But only recently has the technology developed sufficiently to allow digital images of sufficient quality to match up to the demands (or the scale) of a feature film, and at speeds that slow the action by forty times or more. It was a challenging brief, but we were enormously lucky and, I hope, came back with some exciting images.

Once back in the UK I was almost immediately off on a tour to promote my new book, Shetland Diaries, which, so far, seems to have been well received. Many thanks to all those of you who have come to hear me speak, from the Outdoor Show at the NEC in Birmingham, to St Ives in Cornwall and lots of stops in between. And thank you too for buying the book. I do hope that you are enjoying it. I’m just returning now to a one day, yes, that’s a one day stay in Greece to look at the wildlife of a charming and peaceful olive grove on the island of Evia, and am about to do a couple of days presenting for a Springwatch Special on urban wildlife.

After that, it’s straight up to Scotland to host a wildlife holiday near Grantown on Spey and then a couple of days book promotion in Scotland before a couple of weeks breather with Marguerite and Savannah.

What a lucky bloke!!

Peace and Light

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