Incredible photographs of animals roaming Kenya's Maasai Mara

Whereas a lion cub reaches adulthood within three years, an elephant calf will take about 18 years and, just like a human baby, will be almost completely reliant on its mother and the rest of its family for the initial phase of its life.

I’ve been told that the aggressive body language of wild animals is usually just a bluff. In this light, I think of my encounter with Joe the hippo. He was out there in a pond, cast out by the pod, and had no females to guard. I think he was pretending to be hard, but I decided not to hang around and test the theory.

On a dull morning I waited near a riverine forest for primates to emerge for a feeding foray and reconnected with the vervet monkey troop of a female I have known for some time. Later, she rested under a large tree with her newborn baby. At this stage in life, the baby is carried everywhere and is totally dependent on her mother for both food and protection.

The rains crept in, taking the guise of gentle showers. Some mysterious hormonal and genetic combination in mothers triggered a spate of new life in the Mara. Kisiwa, the lioness, was with her three tiny cubs at their den site. She was trying hard to keep her trio in one place, but they didn’t really know how to co-operate. One by one, meowing and crying, they crawled out all over the den site, and then one tumbled without grace. Their smell had built up, danger could strike. Kisiwa didn’t know when, so she carried them, one at a time, to another den. Dangling from her jaw, each one looked a picture of woe. It’s a delicate task that Kisiwa carried out instinctively, and with aplomb.

Driving along a well-beaten track, a fracture on the land’s parched surface, I went to the bend in the river where a herd of giraffes haunts the gallery forest and sometimes comes out on to the adjoining plain. They appeared, gracefully, arranging themselves around a few trees that defiantly grow on the shallow soil of the plain. With deliberate dignity, two bulls detached themselves to engage in a choreographed necking duel. There was no winner, but then that was not the point.

This basking crocodile was waiting for the herds to cross the Mara River. A five-metre (16-feet) monster with the jaws of a bulldozer, it just lay there, never seeming to worry or be in a hurry: the herds will come when they come.

The sky rumbled and the day became a waxy grey, weighed down by the rain that fell like a waterfall. But soon the rain moved on and the vervet monkeys got on with feeding as the cycle of weather turned once again.

The elephant was dead – no way of knowing how or why. The rotten stench was overpowering. The Marsh Lion Pride was gorging and tempers were flying. As the easterly horizon glowed with streams of white and rays seeped over the plain, turning it to gold, a bold jackal sneaked in and made off with a piece of meat. Somewhere a fish eagle called and I heard a baboon bark. The lions fed on, completely engrossed in their task.

The dry atmosphere continued to suck moisture out of the earth. Flies buzzed around listless animals which flicked their tails in irritation. An elephant mother walked by on an earth that was cracked to bits, carrying a heavy burden it seemed. A grimness had descended. Everyone had a thirst that needed to be quenched. It was particularly hard for the frail ones struggling to keep up with the strong.

It was early morning and two shapes were heading in my direction. I glanced at the sky and saw a few wisps of scattered clouds, indicating that the transition from dark to light would be relatively quick. Peering through binoculars, I could make out that the dots were two male lions, the impervious Morani in the lead and Scarface following faithfully. They are two of the four musketeers that hold sway on a vast swathe of the Mara and I remember their teamwork, their roaring and their marking of the land with serious intent. They had, and still have, an impact on everyone. In the thrall of conflicting emotions, I set out to convey, in a single photograph, the tension of a close encounter with these two powerful feline predators in their wide open spaces. Only the perspective of close, low and wide would do.

Unlike the leisurely march of the elephants, the wildebeest kept on running, kept on leaping. It’s hard wired into their brains, embedded in their psyche, and they only stop when they get to a place where there is water and grass to spare.