Masai Mara is one of those destinations that can never fail to surprise you in terms of what you get to see and photograph. Every time I visit, I have had at least one experience, if not more, that I can come back home and talk about – which is what makes it one of my favorite photographing destinations.
While there are a lot of incidents that I could write about, this particular one stands out as probably the rarest and most memorable one. This was in June 2019; it was the end of our first day in the Mara and as we drove back to our camp, we came across a sight that got us really excited at first. We found a giraffe who was giving birth to a calf! Sadly though, upon closer inspection we realized that the calf was stuck on its way out and had suffocated and died eventually. What was worse was that because it got stuck, the mother wasn’t able to get it out of her body. Our guide Antony told us that she must be in extreme pain and the longer that she wasn’t able to get the calf out the more dangerous it was going to be for her own life. The Masai giraffe has been listed as an endangered species by the IUCN so losing another one would have been a great loss.
He immediately called the rangers with the hope that they could get a vet and find this giraffe in time to probably save it. It was getting dark and we had to leave this sight with a mixed sense of sadness at the loss of the calf and hope that maybe the rangers with the vets would find the giraffe and save it.
The next day as we headed out early in the morning, we decided to go back to the same area and look if the giraffe had made it through the night. Unfortunately, when we got there, we realized that the giraffe had died probably during the early hours of the morning and now all that was left was a giant carcass that was covered by more than fifty vultures. Nature works in mysterious ways doesn’t it… we lost one endangered species, but it was now a much-needed meal for another group of endangered species in the form of these vultures who had been working their way on the carcass with haste. Almost all species of vultures in Africa fall in the endangered category. A free meal this huge would ideally have been something that would be hard to miss or let go for any predator in the savanna and yet there wasn’t a single bit cat in sight. It was just these scavengers who were making the most of this undisturbed opportunity.
Then out of nowhere, our guide Antony pointed out to a solitary hyena who appeared from behind one of the bushes. Our guess was that he had caught the scent of the dead animal and had decided to come in for a quick inspection. His arrival caused a bit of a commotion as the vultures had to make space for him. He too, I’m guessing was quite surprised that none of the big cats, especially the lion prides in the area had found this free meal. So, he looked around for a bit and then began to join the feast. The vultures had been at the carcass for quite a while, so a lot of the meat on the top was gone. This is when the hyena decided to do something that we weren’t expecting, he bent his head, looked inside the belly of the giraffe and went right in. For about thirty seconds he vanished and then suddenly he decided to pop his head out to check the surroundings. That was the exact moment when I managed to get a shot and a memory that I do not think I would ever forget or a sight I never see again. When Antony, who has been going to the Mara daily for the last twenty odd years saw this image and said that he’d never seen a sight like this before, I knew that lady luck was truly smiling at me that day.
I usually love photographing the big cats but this time around, it was the scavengers, who maintain balance by ensuring there is never anything that goes to waste in the wild, that had given a memory that I would treasure for a lifetime. Being out in the wild whether in Africa or in any other part of the world is always an opportunity to experience something different and come back with a story to preserve and tell forever.
