Spotting The Spotted Cat – By Gareth Jones

It was early morning on a beautiful day, as we drove slowly through the park appreciating the sunrise and God’s wonderful creation. As we drove along the western boundary over rocky terrain, a small pack of black-backed jackals appeared on the road. Clearly they were definitely not interested in us, as they ran ahead and suddenly all stood still in the middle of the road. Then they made high pitched almost whining sounds and very alertly looked across the bushveld in the direction of the Mbagathi river gorge. I guessed that there was a spotted predator like a Leo Pardus somewhere nearby. The jackals withdrew to the opposite side of the road and quietened down as I drove slowly forward while scanning the long grass and thick bushy area on the riverside of the road. Due to the heavy rains that ended a few months ago the vegetation seriously reduces visibility, while allowing other creatures, especially predators to virtually disappear due to the additional cover.

Just then a herd of Impala about 150m away began to snort loudly as they all faced in a single direction looking back and being very alert. I knew that a big cat had to be nearby. Then as I looked back in the direction the impalas were looking, I saw it. Deep inside the middle of a large scrub over 200m away was a catlike shape. We looked with binoculars and, Wow!!!… it was indeed a leopard. It remained still for a few minutes and then began to walk in the long grass towards the road. I estimated the general direction the leopard was walking and decided to reverse to the position where the jackals were last seen. We waited a few minutes, then suddenly the leopard appeared out of the long grass and jumped up the side of a tall tree for a short while, seemingly to be able to view the position of the jackals. The jackals became very stressed when they sighted the leopard and began making even more high pitched yelps, as they moved rapidly away. The leopard then jumped down and disappeared into the long grass, heading towards the river gorge. The leopard was identified as a magnificent big male that has been given the name name “Nguruman” as he was translocated from the Nguruman hills into the Nairobi National Park. It is so good to see that he is doing well and thriving, pray he lives long and leaves his genes in many leopard cubs.

Leopards are a rare sighting in the Nairobi park, as they are mostly nocturnal. Various reports “guestimate” their numbers to be possibly about 20, however, it is difficult to estimate as they are so secretive and elusive by nature.

Interestingly we had almost jokingly mentioned to each other when entering the main gate that it would be wonderful to “spot the spotted cat” again as it had been some time since we last saw a leopard. So how did we see this leopard? Well, firstly we always pray before we go in the park that we will appreciate the glory of creation, irrespective of whatever we see. Then we drive with the attitude of slowing down enough to ‘let nature come to you’. Very often we are still in “Busy buzz” city mode as we escape into nature, our challenge is to relax enough to the pace of nature so that we hope eventually with a serious case of “bush buzz” soul tonic (Dawa).

If we had been simply driving along only looking for big cats and without stopping and observing the seemingly less important creatures, then we definitely would not have seen this leopard. Firstly watching the behaviour of the jackals, and secondly watching the behaviour of the Impala, were the main reasons how we “spotted the spotted cat!”.

If you are looking for somewhere to go to “escape the maddening crowd”, then the Nairobi Park is such a place. Relax and let nature come to you, and hopefully, you will also “spot the spotted cat!”