*Serval, Pose Plains, Maasai Mara, August 2022*

Card No. 15 in the Brooke Bond ‘African Wild Life’ series, first published in 1962 was the Serval. Illustrated and described by Charles F Tunnicliffe it is a truly beautiful animal. With legs, even more out of proportion than Cheetah, in fact the longest of any cat compared to its body size that give it a stilted appearance. It shares a finely spotted coat too, ‘at one time much in favour with native chiefs for mantles, and even today its fur is used for that purpose by the European furriers’ wrote Tunnicliffe 60 years ago. When photographing wildlife I am often thinking of an image that looks like one of his tea card paintings - I might just have what I was looking for!

We had a couple of Serval encounters on the recent Wild Images Maasai Mara tour. The first was in very harsh late morning light and very nice, but it was more of a watching experience as it hunted in a sea of grass, so typical of the Mara plains. As we waited for it to show in the open, more safari vehicles arrived and made viewing space tricky and backgrounds far from ideal, so we abandoned it. Our next meeting with the ‘Delicate Cat’ was late one afternoon at sunset, when we received a call from our lodge’s other vehicles that a Serval was not far away. This time we had it completely to ourselves for about half an hour, on the prowl in the long grass, striking various poses and crucially a few times without a mesh of grass stems across its face as so often is the way. The low light was actually really nice and the Canon R5 performed. FAB-U-LOUS!

Thanks to my awesome Maasai driver guide Tinka Jackson, without whose expert help these photos would not have been possible.

MAASAI MARA SERVAL