In the northern-most sector of the 20,000 square kilometre Mara-Serengeti ecosystem, is the unfettered, sprawling wilderness of the Masai Mara National Reserve. It is named after the tall red-robed Maasai people and their Maa description of the area. ‘Mara’, meaning spotted, relating to either the individual flat top acacias, sporadic cloud formations or the speckled inundation of wildlife on endless horizons.
The wildlife roams freely within the reserve and adjacent dispersal areas where the Maasai communities dwell, illustrating a rare, modern day symbiosis in which wild animals and people live in peace. The topography in the Mara is three-fold from the Ngama hills in the East to the magnificent Oloololo escarpment and plateau in the West, via the central rolling grassland plains that form the largest part of the reserve. This diverse landscape displays a profusion of avian fauna amounting to over 450 species, of which an incredible 57 are birds of prey.