Lions watch sunset & moonrise: Video
Published by Wildcaster 1 year, 11 months ago Tags: adventure, africa, animal kingdom, blogumentary, buffalo, bush knowledge, cites, conservation, documentary, ecotraining, education, elephants, IUCN Red List, lions, malilangwe, mashable, narrowcasting, Open Content Alliance, pamushana, peace parks, photos, podcasting, polls, predators, teach, video, wildcasting, wildlife, wildlife documentary, youtube, zimbabwe.A small herd of buffalo bulls were wallowing down near the Mahande river. They’re a little nervous these guys in the deep south, so I approached slowly.
Suddenly, coming from the side, I saw a big elephant bull bearing down on me. He was a big dude and looked really threatening but not scary enough. I stopped and he came to an abrupt halt too.
Still frustrated, being in musth, he turned his attention on the buffalo and chased them all over the place. All the while a few other elephants stood calmly feeding close by.
When these guys are in musth they have a serious change in attitude and can at times be really dangerous especially if one is on foot. And it’s also when they’re in this hormonal stage that they give the females a hard time and cause havoc in the herds. These are the guys who usually get to mate with any female in oestrus.
This bull finally left the buffalo, and lost interest in me, to go and join the herd.
In the early morning I had the lions north of Nduna and spent a few hours with them totally passed out. Eventually I left them to it at mid-morning.
But when I got back there in the afternoon there was no sign of them. We had had a little rain about midday, so presumably the lions used this cool weather to move on.
Eventually I picked them up right on the northern boundary. Sleeping.
It’s always a concern when these guys are moving around the boundary as they might find a hole in the fence, usually caused by elephant, and hit soft targets (cattle, goats) on the other side. It is then that they get persecuted. At least for now they are still in the reserve.
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Speaking of animals sleeping - Kim, how do prey animals manage to get sleep when a predator can come at them at any time? Do they sleep standing up and can wake at a moment’s notice? I guess I’m particularly curious about how Impala and Buffalo deal w/ this.
Just for fun, I’d like to take a couple of guesses:
1) For Buffalo, I’m guessing the herd (and their horns) give them some protection.
2) Do animals make a point of it to try to sleep near other species who might emit a sound when a predatory animal is in the area?
Also, I’m just curious if you’ve ever seen a lion get attacked while sleeping (since they sleep so often). I doubt it since they also sleep in packs but I’m just curious.
Kim,
How do the deteriorating economic situation and the political situation in Zimbabwe
affect your work, the Game Reserve, and the animals? I would think that trying to
convince people that conservation and environmental changes are necessary is much
more difficult when people are hungry and would rather eat the animals.
To me, the elephants and the other animals are beautiful and exotic, and I can’t imagine harming one of them. But from what I have read, some consider the elephants just
giant pests who trample gardens, agricultural endeavors, and most everything in sight.
Do you have electricity most of the time? I have heard many do not.
I guess I’d just like to hear what you have to say about the whole situation. Are the
news reports we are getting really giving us a true picture?– (here in America)
And… like the bull elephant in today’s update, maybe the young American guy who challenged you to the rowing and jogging race was in Musth. Young men with too much testosterone often have delusions of grandeur. As a female who has passed middle age, I am no longer affected by these delusions, but I am still very much aware of them.
Women get bitch and eat chocolate. Men try to leap tall buildings in a single bound.
Kevin. These animals have very acute senses and wake up with the slightest sound. Also there are many animals and birds sounding the alarm all the time and the animals are attuned to this. They can sleep lying down or standing.
Impala herds rely on each other. Buffalo herds sleep all bunched up together - a formidable barrier to any predator. Lions generally don’t approach sleeping buffalo herds. They need to get them on the run before they attempt an attack.
Nothing really attacks lions except man!
Pat. Things are great here on the reserve. Really love the place and couldn’t be better. We do have power outages but then so does NYC. The country is going through a rough period but it’s still a most awesome place to live.
I think the Amerian guy wishes he was in musth. Anything to help him.
Kim, I don’t know how you can contain your excitement while observing the lions’ “in”action. Every time one of them yawns, I yawn. It would be a good video for insomniacs!
How far are you from the pride when you are sitting and watching them? I assume you’re using a long lens but how far away? A man in California was hiking with his wife recently and was attacked by a mountain lion without warning. Are your lions aware of your presence?
Paula
Kim — I love your wry, understated narration but I also love when you give us a chance just to WATCH!! There’s so much noise and blah blah in the world, it’s wonderful to observe and learn.
Amy
Paula. They can be as close as 10m but usually about 23-30m. And yes they are fully aware of my presence. And if i had to go walking with them, i too might end up being lunch. But in the day time they’re not as bold and one could stand ones ground and most of the time they would back off. but at night they’re a totally different beast and fearless!
10 meters is pretty close! You stay in the car, right? So you look bigger than you are? Obviously they don’t seem worried about your presence if they can just roll over and sleep like they do. Magnificent animals.
I remember seeing you out of the car and up very close to Tjololo a few times and I was just amazed he’d let you do that.
Paula
there was a time when Tjololo urinated on me as i was lying next to the stump he wanted to mark on.