Notch took care of his sons – Notch II, Mighty Long, Ron, Caesar and Grimace – for more than a year until they were fully grown. Notch was probably nine years old when their reign of terror began in the Mara in 2008.

Notch and his sons built one of the biggest and fiercest coalitions ever seen in the Mara. Notch was a beautiful black-maned lion and it took guts and skill to build this complicated union with his sons. The six lions dominated the Mara, over 1,000 Km2, for years and sired numerous cubs.

Within a few years they’d established absolute dominance in the Mara by killing and intimidating lions that stood in their way. They ruled over several prides including Paradise, Mugoro, Serena, Rekero, Rekero Breakaway, Rongai, Olkiombo, Maji ya Fisi and the Lookout Prides.

Immortalized in the Disney Film African Cats that was released in 2010, Notch and his sons prowess at hunting was well illustrated. Fang, a fierce and mean-looking lion with one of his canines hanging out of his mouth, had his territory invaded by Notch and Notch II. Fang was no match for the two and he ran away. The pride’s lionesses, however, put up a spirited fight. The two Notch boys couldn’t overpower them and left.

The pride was saved. Fang returned, but Notch came back after a while with Caesar, Ron and Grimace. Some of the most powerful moments in the film are when Notch meets his sons and are walking toward’s Fang’s territory as the sun sets. You could almost feel the power, the malice and murderous intent of the Notch coalition.

Although Notch was an old lion and in an unusual relationship with his five sons, he stood toe-to-toe with them. He was the alpha male and made the boys know that until his age caught up with him.

A single male lion is a formidable opponent but when you have five more big and strong male lions, who are expert buffalo and hippopotamus killers, then it’s a recipe for chaos. It’s not known how many lions they killed during their almost decade long reign but it ‘s believed to be in the dozens. Whereas most lions would hunt prey such as Wildebeest, The Notch Boy’s specialized in hunting and bringing down hippos. During their prime, we had personally counted between 25-30 hippo carcasses brought down and devoured by them within a span of 2 years.

Due to the expansive territory controlled by the boys, it seemed they had spread themselves thin with Long vanishing without a trace in the Mara Triangle in 2010, probably killed by other male lions.

A few years later Notch was on his last legs. He was over 14 years old when he died in 2013 – quite old for a male lion given their average lifespan in the wild is approximately 10-12 years. He had split from his boys during the last few years of his life, but was always near them for food and security.

A few months after Notch’s death, Grimace also died deep into enemy territory and although the coalition was now cut in half they were still formidable. Although their territory had shrunk, Ron, Caesar and Notch II were still intimidating and menacing to other lion coalitions.

Sometime in 2016 Ron was killed by the Sand River Males who were slowly becoming a formidable coalition. Caesar died in 2017 after he developed a limp on his hind legs. To this day, the genes of the Notch coalition continue to live on through the countless cubs that they sired.

The pride began to split up and were often seen on the boundaries of the Olare-Motorogi conservancy and the main Mara Reserve.

Shortly after this image was taken, the lioness brought down a female warthog right next to our vehicle. It goes to show that even with age catching up to them, lions are resilient and formidable hunters.

This image was taken almost 8 years ago and was the final encounter we had with this “powerhouse” of a lioness.

This image was taken in 2017, when he was approximately 6 years old. He had just brought down a fully grown Topi and as there was no cover around, he decided to perch himself up a dead Balanites/Desert Date Tree (Balanites Aegyptiaca) to shade himself from the scorching midday heat. To our surprise, he posed for the camera for many hours and since male leopards don’t seem to be very habituated around human beings and vehicles and on most occasions tend to be very solitary and elusive, we found his behavior to be highly unusual.

Upon noticing his behavior, we realized that he was a unique male leopard who had grown accustomed to vehicles from a very early age and was not shy at all around the presence of his bipedal neighbors.

Olive amazed us when she left the young cubs for almost 3 days and moved to an area called Double crossing, where she met and mated with a male leopard in the area. The male was one that we had named Ridge male, because he was mainly found along Rhino Ridge and Double crossing area. At first we though she may have lost the cubs. After following them closely we found out that, the mating was actually her way of drawing the male who fathered the 2 cubs to the area where the cubs were for protection.

It was now important for Olive to have the new father of her cubs close to the den, since the area was in Big Boy’s territory, and the cubs risked being killed if he comes across them. True to her tactics, just a day after coming to the den with the new male, the cubs emerged and joined them. The two, Pacha and Nkaiyoni grew up successfully and left their mother’s home range after being pushed away by their father when they came of age.

Olive had another litter in October 2010. The cubs were a male and female, named Shujaa (Swahili for Hero, after Heroes’ month of October) and Bahati (Swahili for lucky one) respectively. Shujaa was a male and Bahati a female. The cubs were first seen in October 2010 under the exposed roots of a uclea divinorum tree on the Olare-Orok river, near the junction with the Talek river.

Without our knowledge, Olive had moved her cubs and hid them under the wooden deck at the bar area of Mara Intrepids Camp. When we heard the cubs, the security staff shone the torch under the deck and saw the cubs. We then asked the guests to leave the area, as our presence and noise could make her think the cubs are in danger and could react aggressively. When the place was quiet and after the lights went off, she came for her cubs and moved them to unknown location where she hid them for sometime. The male cub disappeared shortly and we remained with the female, Bahati.

In early 2012, Olive had another litter with the Ridge Male. There were two cubs named a female named Saba (Swahili for seven, being the 7th surviving cubs) and a male, named Nane (Swahili for eight), Nane died at around 3 months and we think he was killed by lions. Bahati, the older sibling to Saba, never left her mother’s territory even though she independent. She had kept coming across or even joining her mother together with Saba.

Olive is survived by seven offspring, who will carry on her legacy. These are, in the order of birth; Binti & Ayah, Kali, Paja & Nkaiyoni, Bahati and Saba.

On 25th September 2013, while out on a game drive, we received some horrifying news from a fellow guide and photographer that Olive was found dead. Upon hearing the news, we soon headed to the location where she was seen, at least to confirm it was her.

When we got to where she was, we confirmed it was Olive. She had bite marks on the back of her neck and tail, which seemed like a lion bite. We checked around the area where she lay and found evidence of some struggle. I could see where she dug her claws into the ground which shows that there was a fight. After an autopsy was conducted by the park authorities, it was revealed that at the time of Olive’s death, she was pregnant with 3 cubs.

We had intimately followed Olive for over 10 years and even though it has been 8 years since her passing, we continue to dearly miss this superstar in The Maasai Mara.

As Malaika was not in estrus, they did not mate. However, cheetahs are induced ovulators, and meeting with excited males could have induced estrus. On 1 March, Malaika displayed typical behavior of a cheetah in heat – she was intensively rolling over and marking objects, and one of her juvenile sons was inspecting her marks with interest.

At that time, she did not let her cubs approach her. In order to avoid inbreeding, females in estrus leave their offspring, and Malaika did the same. Most likely she left the cubs to look for a different mate. Malaka’s sons were old enough to take care of themselves.

Malaika was famous all over the world for her habit of climbing vehicles. She used them as a vantage point to source prey, especially when the grass was high during the dry summer months. She also used the vehicles for security when other predators (lions & hyenas) were in the vicinity.

In March 2018, Malaika was spotted around the double-cross area of the Mara Reserve. She stayed in that area and the surrounding rhino ridge for a couple of days where she made several unsuccessful attempts at hunting impala.

She had no choice but to try and cross the raging Olare-Orok river as she had 2 sub-adult cubs who were still dependent on her for food. This was the last time she was seen. Reports suggest she may have drowned or she was killed by a crocodile. A couple of days later, 2 large crocodiles were seen in the same spot that she had disappeared.