I was all set to spending another day in the hide and already busy transferring all my kit when I got a call on the radio that the lions had a buffalo kill on Banyini.
It took me some time to find it but eventually after sorting out east’s from west’s I found 3 members of the Nduna pride with the bony remains of a buffalo kill.
They had obviously killed it last night and the 9 lions had polished off the whole carcass, a buffalo cow.
Manyari was the last to leave the kill and reluctantly so. The vultures and jackals had already begun arriving in force but Manyari was having none of it and chased off any who ventured too close.
Eventually with her stomaching swaying her from side to side, she relinquished the carcass but only after having the last lick to be sure there wasn’t drop of blood left for the scavengers.
The vultures then packed the carcass. They were mainly White-backed Vultures but also a number of Lappet-faced Vultures and some Hooded Vultures.
As they crowded the carcass, there was no space for a jackal who had to settle for scraps on the perimeter and even for that he had to fight to keep the birds away. One vulture that was that little slow had some of his tail feathers plucked when the jackal bit at his bum.
It wasn’t long and the vultures had left the carcass stripped clean of any meat, leaving only the white bones, the horns and some skin as evidence of the dirty deed.
5th August 2000
We were surprised to find Tjololo still with some carcass. Normally he’d have polished off these remains and moved on. He only finished the carcass after sunset and moved on east.
While lying around at the carcass we noticed he was drooling and seemed to be panting excessively. His coat also looked wet from sweat. All these signs pointed to him having some sort of fever.
When he moved on east his pace was slow and he kept resting up in the Sand river. But any sign of prey perked him up into hunting mode.
Around 3h00 he was meters off a duiker but blew his cover only to stumble into a herd of impala and when we found him he had a female impala dangling from his jaws high up in a tree, obviously in anticipation of interception by hyaenas. But the situation he was in with the impala dangling from his jaws was very tiring and it was inevitable he would drop the carcass. He did, and with the carcass on the ground he stayed in the tree catching his breath. He was exhausted. Luckily no hyaena were around. Only some 10 minutes later did he drag the carcass off some 500m into a donga. Exhausted, he rested up with the carcass on the ground and only treed it about an hour later. But again he dropped it. This was too much for him and when we left the carcass was still lying on the ground.
All the effort was obviously a bit much for him with not feeling himself. Hopefully with the larder full he will have time to recover and bounce back to be “The One Who Stands Alone”.
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