Daily Archive for September 17th, 2007

Injured lioness mending: Video

Published
by
Wildcaster
on September 17, 2007
in videopost
. 3 Comments

Not having been with Manyari the night before last I wasn’t too sure how far she would have moved and if she would have found the rest of the pride.
But we found her soon after dark with her youngsters resting up about half a kilometre from Nduna, which meant they’d moved about 2kms the previous night.

Innocent
They were all very lethargic. I suppose not surprising if they haven’t eaten for 4 or 5 days.
Manyari got the youngsters on the move in the middle of the night. Not far off they encountered a herd of impala. Amazingly Manyari was keen and led the cubs towards them. But their cover was blown and the impala took off.
I wonder if they’d got close enough if Manyari would have gone for them? Quite likely ‘cos once those guys get psyched up in a stalk there is little that stops them. She would surely have hurt herself though.
The lions moved on to drink at Nduna dam where they rested up a while before heading west into the hills. We weren’t able to follow but kept tabs of their signal.
About 2kms to the west they rested up near Lesililije spring where we left them soon after sunrise.
At least now they’re better positioned to hear any activity from the rest of the pride several of which were seen yesterday several kms to the south of this position.
Manyari is definitely not in as much pain and she’s a lot more alert. She gets up almost at a normal pace and walks with a slight limp but is able to keep up a fair pace.
That’s all good news, so hopefully now she can keep her wounds clean and prevent any infection.
Being fairly inactive the pride can still go without food for at least another week. But hopefully before then they’ll meet up with the rest of the pride and be able to feed.
At dawn the weather changed becoming overcast, humid and windy. It’s under these conditions that the animals tend to vaporise and aren’t seen anywhere.

White family
We were lucky though seeing a black rhino cow and calf, and with them 3 white rhino. But they were nervous and didn’t hang around.
Near Chekwa we saw another 3 white rhino sharing their space with a herd of wildebeest.

Grazers
But the light was absolutely awful and it seemed silly to be taking pictures under these conditions.

Doubly bland

Tjololo 17th September 2000

Published
by
Wildcaster
on September 17, 2007
in tjdiaries
. 0 Comments

The Tjololo Diaries

17th September 2000
It would appear that my assumptions yesterday were wrong. The female that Tjololo met to the east in Kruger was not the same female that met up with him in the west on the Sand river, although they were both after the same cause.
After closer examination we identified the female on the river as the Newington female. She is very relaxed and so all behaviour we witnessed was natural.
Tjololo did it again. Any time that she got close to him and he realized she wasn’t too sure of his position, he would stalk and then charge, sending her scattering for the nearest tree yeowling and urinating as she went. But she wanted him and continued to follow and propose to him all night only to receive the same treatment. Even at dawn, now 24 hours later, she was still hankering after him.


Tjololo tried to ignore her constantly shadowing him and continued to mark his northern boundary. Then headed west in the Kapen river and almost back to where he’d started out in the evening before heading south in the river. Although he made several unsuccessful hunting attempts on impala, he seemed to again be concentrating his efforts on maintaining his boundaries.
The only common denominator in both these females that he isn’t interested in is they both reside predominantly on the western side of the river, which is outside his territory. These girls should be seeking the services of their own resident male. But then maybe Tjololo is such a dude they all want him.
Whether this fact that these girls are from a neighbouring territory has anything to do with it is hard to say.