The Loita Migration
The "Secret" Migration
One of Kenya’s best-kept wildlife secrets is that there is actually another migration each year, in addition to the world-renowned Great Migration in July and August.
The Loita Migration, between January and March, does not involve wildebeest migrating northward from Serengeti but is instead, an east to west migration from the Loita plains to the Mara traversing Ol Kinyei, Naboisho and Olare Motorogi Conservancies.
Below is an entry from a previous year’s safari diary in March from Nirmalya Banerjee, camp manager at Porini Cheetah Camp in Ol Kinyei Conservancy. This gives more detail of what visitors can expect to see in February and March:
The Loita migration is still on, in full swing and wildebeest in their tens of thousands, are travelling in the long lines typical of them, seemingly unaware of the many hungry eyes on them.
Wildebeest Negotiating the Enkonyonko River in Ol Kinyei Conservancy
You still have large concentrations of the herbivores and this is also the time of the year when wildebeest calves are born. This leads to increased big cat activity. So, you get to see a larger than usual number of plains game and the carnivores. What is missing though is the crowds of tourists and the high rates associated with the peak tourist season between July and September.
Within the last week we have seen cheetahs, hyenas and even a jackal with kills.
And attracted by the easy availability of prey, a small pack of rare African Wild (or Painted) Dogs visited us.
When there’s plenty of prey available our resident lions become more active. Usually this takes the form of more frequent hunts. A couple of days ago we were taken aback to see a lioness up a tree scoping out a large herd of wildebeest from where it would have least expected to be observed by the big cat.
The next morning when we went there again, there were no lions or wildebeest. There was though, a wildebeest carcass on the ground, picked almost clean, not far from the tree the lioness had climbed the previous evening.
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Accommodation in Ol Kinyei Conservancy:
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