Smaller Hunters

The enormity of the biomass in eastern Africa creates niches of all sizes. While many of our earlier posts on carnivores have focused on the big cats and dogs, there are of course smaller predators for smaller prey throughout the landscape. The only trick being that since they are smaller they are much harder to spot in comparison. This Serval was the only one we saw but we were lucky enough to watch it hunting for small reptiles or rodents on our way out of Ngorongoro Crater.
At the other end of the rarity spectrum, jackals were quite common throughout our trip and always busy looking for smaller prey or the remains of a kill. This silver-backed jackal was out in Sweetwaters on a hunt. They typically seemed to work in pairs and we had a handful of charmingly close encounters but for the most part they kept their distance.
There are a surprising number of breeds of mongoose on the ground out there if you are lucky enough to spot them. We managed to get a sighting of each of the five main species but were only able to photograph two of them. This Dwarf Mongoose was part of a troop in the Maasai Mara in one of our lodges that were quite photogenic, running alongside the path and digging for beetles.