February 16, 2011
Cheetahs in the Serengeti, Tanzania

The eleventh day of my safari in Tanzania, and the fourth in the southern Serengeti, was the "Day of the Cheetah."

We moved from the southern part of Serengeti National Park to the northern part of the neighboring Ngorongoro Conservation Area, and spent a lot of time with two different cheetah families. The first was a mother with three cubs at a Thomson's gazelle kill. The second was a mother with two cubs not too far away from the first family. They were moving as a group (above) when we arrived, and after a while they laid down and rested. We left them to go check out a group of lions, then quickly left the lions when they were just resting too and returned to the cheetah mother and two cubs. Unfortunately, that little excursion prevented us from watching the cheetahs capture an African hare — we returned to find them eating their little snack. We stayed with the cheetah family because the mother was keeping a close eye on a nearby herd of Thomson's gazelle and we didn't want to miss the action this time. She made some stalking moves to get closer to the herd, but she didn't take off on a chase before we had to head to our new campsite near Lake Ndutu.

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