Who is this?

The adventures of three sexy female private eyes

There are a number of leopards that cross the Mara River - particularly over the past +5 years when we have had bad droughts in the Mara that have been ongoing with little rain and a very low Mara River. These leopards operate on either side of the River at times. Males tend to have larger territories than females and wander extensively and rapidly around their territory, monitoring the 2 or 3 females whose own territories are overlapped by the males larger territory. Sorry if that sounded clumsy! The females are territorial too but with more overlapping ranges than males - with both sexes generally trying to avoid being in the same place at the same time by taking note of scent and vocalizations. Many of the females we see will be close relatives - grandmothers, mothers, daughters, sisters (e.g. Half-Tail and her offspring at one point in the 1990s meant that there were at least 3 females sharing parts of the same range known to us). Rivers make natural boundaries to some degree but as with the lions (e.g. Notch and his 5 Boys (now 4 Boys)) they will cross at times and encroach on their neigbour's territory. There is a big male who we see near the Serena Pump House and also west to Main Crossing on Paradise (opposite Serena Lodge) who does this a lot - and who ambushes wildebeest at crossing points the way Bella used to on the Talek River. The female you mention and her two cubs - very obviously a male cub who is (as one would expect) considerably larger than his sister - of around 10 months (always difficult to tell from video - under one year at any rate). This female is not the beautiful and very distinctive leopard who we have been photographing in the Pump House area (north of the Mara River and Serena) who wanders up to the Kifukia Ya Nyoka Lugga (east of Paradise Plain) and surrounding bushes and rocks and grasslands). The Kichwa Tembo drivers will know this female for sure as she is evidently pretty relaxed - and so will the Drivers from Little Governor's Camp. So if they have a blog they would be the ones to check with. I will ask the Governor's drivers next time we are in Mara.