The lions are hard pressed.
Another night and the camera hardly rolled and the other camera hardly clicked. That’s what happens when trying to do too many projects at once. I should concentrate either on the wild dogs or the lions, but with the lions not having killed for a week it would seem silly to leave them now. And especially as today they’re in good buffalo bull country.
I think what happens to lions’ hunting enthusiasm is it follows a few curves. When they’re well fed they will hunt with piles of enthusiasm. Once they get a little leaner they lose a lot of desire to hunt and just want to sleep all night. I think we’re into that mode now. Then once they get really really hungry they go into overdrive and hunt with huge enthusiasm. That could still be a few days away.
Last night they made a few minor attempts hunting impala and some reedbuck. And that was it.
What might also be dampening the lions spirit is the pride have split for no apparent reason. We found Nduna and Gwaza (another lioness), resting to the west of the pride in the early evening.
By dawn they were far apart but Nduna was calling. A male cub was keen to join him and headed that way. But then gave up and in coming back to the rest of the pride couldn’t find them. He called frantically and the pride kept quiet. When I left he was still calling but not far from the other lions. No doubt they’ll join up later.
I found the wild dogs in the afternoon not far from where I’d left them yesterday. They were resting up at an anthill that had been recently excavated. Good news!!
The Alpha female was resting out the den with Whisky. Towards sunset she moved to the den and excavated away at it and then disappeared inside, all the time whimpering to herself. I left about an hour later and she was still in the den, with the pack waiting around.
This morning there was no sign of any dogs. I’m hoping what has happened, is the Alpha female is inside the den and the rest of the pack are out hunting. Because they didn’t hunt successfully they didn’t go back to the den. So hopefully they’ll be back tonight with full tummy’s and will be able to feed the alpha female.
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