Some of you may have watched the first 'Big Cat Live!' tonight. Some seem to be a little confused - to say the least! Well, sadly no, I didn't just make a 24 hour dash to the Masai Mara to join the Big Cat team but that didn't stop me re-living a trip to remember from when I was lucky enough to join them for a month as a 'spotter' on the leopard team. It was for my RSPB sabbatical which is a four week study break we're allowed for every seven years we work for the RSPB. If we take it, it must be linked to our wildlife conservation work in some way and this amazing opportunity came about because I'd helped the BBC NHU with their 'Springwatch' live outside broadcasts from the sea eagle's nest on Mull. So, just for tonight, as a brief change of pace and location, let me transport you from the beautiful, autumnal Hebrides to the hot, dusty and stormy Masai Mara and for me, the trip of a lifetime.
It wasn’t a white-tailed sea eagle I was watching flapping off down river but at certain angles it could easily have been. For a brief moment my mind wandered back to Mull. How were the eagles faring? Had the chicks dispersed now to pastures new? Then the haunting cry of their close cousin, the African fish eagle, echoed out across the plains and I was back in the Mara in an instant. The large raptor swerved round a bend in the Talek River, white tail and all white head gleaming in the bright Kenyan sun, and it was gone.
The dawn chorus was already subsiding but the noises were still distinctly tropical. Glossy starlings on the ground around my 4WD, green pigeons in the fig trees, little bee-eaters in the river banks and ground hornbills booming out their deep, haunting calls. The starlings flew off from the breadcrumbs I’d tossed them out of the car window as my radio jolted me back to the job I was meant to be concentrating on: finding a leopard called Bella:
“Ok team, I’ve just spoken to a driver from Mara Intrepids camp who earlier saw a leopard near Fig tree loop…” It was Saba Douglas-Hamilton, BBC presenter on the leopard’s team for Big Cat Week. “…Dave, are you still near that part of the river…?” Amazingly (and for once) I was in the right place and on the right side of the fast flowing river! It seemed that just 30 minutes previously, a leopard had been seen by a vehicle full of visitors just a short distance up-stream from where I was quietly tucking into my breakfast of muesli, banana and coffee. I was on the case!
The leopard had stalked, caught and then dropped an adult Egyptian goose. This behaviour sounded more like the actions of Chui, Bella’s two year old son and co-star of BBC’s 10 year wildlife reality show, Big Cat Diary. I was fulfilling a long-held dream and working on the series as a ‘spotter’ as part of a month long sabbatical from the RSPB.
I lobbed the remains of the breakfast out for the starlings and raced to the scene, a beautiful wide bend in the Talek River, one of the large tributaries of the mighty Mara River. The river banks are graced by enormous, beautiful fig trees, patchy croton bushes and long pale grass – all perfect hiding places for our leopards. The bushes also proved to be a perfect hiding place for an angry and ancient bull buffalo which took great exception to me meandering my way through the vegetation. I have never ‘floored’ an accelerator before with quite the same feeling of desperation and adrenalin speeding through me as I did at that moment. I last saw him in the rear view mirror tossing his great head about with saliva and red-billed oxpeckers flying in all directions.
Quite why the leopard had dropped the goose we don’t know but sure enough there it was, out of reach, on a sand bank in the river, wings drooped, neck raked and bloody and looking very sick indeed. The chances were that the leopard wasn’t far away and he’d be keen to finish the job. So I sat and waited…and waited…and waited. Waiting for sea eagles on Mull to do something interesting was nothing compared to this. I’d got the call from Saba at 8.30am; it was now 4.30pm. Surely, the leopard had moved on by now? I started up the engine and drove forward 10 feet to the base of the perfect fig and Chui stuck his head up out of the grass and gave me a half-hearted, irritated snarl. He had been there, sleeping, grooming, stretching in the heat of the African day, all the time; quite invisible to everyone and everything. Even the birds hadn’t alarm called. I backed off. He finally ventured out of the grass, had another look at the goose (which somehow managed to summon some energy from somewhere and flutter off downstream) and then climbed the fig tree and flopped down again, spread-eagled across a sturdy limb.
We didn’t get much film that day but as I watched him closely in the tree against the backdrop of a setting sun with the cry of the fish eagle returning to its roost up river, that really didn’t seem to matter. There was always tomorrow.
With darkness rapidly approaching, this was his time and we had to return to camp for a cold Tusker beer, a shower, dinner and bed, ready for another 4.45am start. That night as the spotted hyenas whooped and cackled outside the tent and the hippos grunted and wallowed in the river, I wondered where Chui and Bella were then and what would they be stalking in the blackness of the African night…
Wonderful to see my old friend Bella again tonight, now 13 years old and looking a little moth-eaten around the ears but back to strength after her injury and still roaming the forests on the banks of the Talek River. Now looking forward to catching up with her son Chui...
'Big Cat Live!' continues tomorrow night BBC One 7.30pm
And no, I haven't lost track of Mara and Breagha in case you were wondering about this temporary diversion. I have news of Mara on another big(ish) trip away from home to the Ross of Mull and Breagha still happy and content to stay nearer to home. More tomorrow.
Dave Sexton RSPB Scotland Mull Officer
2035hrs
Dave Sexton, RSPB Scotland Mull Officer