A single parent of three has a demanding job to raise their young in the predator-rich grasslands of the reserve. For a mother cheetah with adolescent cubs just short of separation it is especially daunting, as her own patient and diligent hunting approach is yet to be reciprocated by her impetuous brood.
She gazed across the oat grass frustrated, her russet retinas flecked with irritation as her troublesome trio thwarted yet another hunt before she finally snared a tiny warthog piglet. A small pork cutlet is barely an hors d’oeuvre so the quest for a more substantial entrée continued. As they filed across the lower Paradise Plains, with a bruised thunderhead above, their coats dissolved in a burnished blur as the three chased their quarry and isolated it in a dazzling, dizzying, dappled vortex. Their prey…..a serval who quickly arched her back like a pouting mafia moll, causing a fractious impasse.
The delicately featured cheetah has plenty of enemies without picking fights with one close enough to be one of her own. Mum endured two more aborts till she dined properly at the Mara high table.
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