We stayed in the middle of Serengeti at a private tented camp and did game drives every day from early morning to (sometimes) late evening.
Day four and we had sighted most of the big game who called Serengeti their home, except leopards (not common in Serengeti anyway) and cheetahs. We had expected to see cheetahs by now.
After visiting a few areas earlier in the morning which were known to have resident cheetahs, there was still no sign of them. We crossed a field where a controlled burn had been the day before to have our breakfast at a picnic area.
There were few small termite mounds scattered in the field. The larger and older ones that had still had dried grass growing on them and were mostly unaffected by the burn.
Toward the end of the field, the driver received a call from another other tour drivers. There’d been a citing in the area we were in. And there, on top of one of the largest termite mounds in front of us by the road, sat an absolutely elegant, sunning herself and looking out into distance.
She was not disturbed and kept her composure as we approached. We stopped at about ten feet away from her. I just could not believe I was seeing this scene…the blackened, wide-open field spotted with unburned clusters of tall grass highlighted by the morning sun in the background and this magnificent beauty in the foreground.
I watched her sitting on top of the mound looking around, my shutter constantly clicking for about ten minutes or so, before she started to get uncomfortable and stood up looking in a direction behind us. As her focus grew more intense, she started to align her body towards the same direction and crouched.
She took a half step down from the mound, paused for few seconds, and still crouching, hopped off the mound in a flash, then graciously walked away. This was the last shot before she jumped off.