Another day and still the lions are mating. 5 days! Imagine that!
And still the brother hangs in the wings waiting. Although this morning their behaviour was something amazing.
The courting male was with Manyari and his brother moved in boldly. The male growled and met him head on, on the other side of Manyari. As they met both Kings pushed hard against each other as their bodies rubbed hard together and then collapsed lying side by side, the courting male always making sure to put himself between Manyari and his brother. The power and tension in both of them was huge and very apparent.
When the courting male got up to mate, the brother sneaked closer. Usually the dominating male would chase him off, but now he didn’t. So while he was mating the brother snuck in and groomed Manyari on her face. She seemed pleased to be in contact with him as they hadn’t had any contact in the last 5 days.
It was amazing to watch all this power as the 3 heads all basically touching, went about doing their thing. One mating, one grooming and one getting it all.
Nothing like letting your brother join you for a bit of the action!
The lions had moved about a kilometre from where I’d left them in the morning, and while looking for them I’d come across these vultures in trees north of Chekwa pan. This had to be a sign there was a carcass in the area. But all the vultures were in trees, so the predator must still be on the carcass.
Later in the night I left the mating couple and went to check on the area with the vultures. There wasn’t anything. The vultures were just roosting, a behaviour I’d only come to realise last year. This explained how, often I would find numerous vultures in trees at dawn and always I thought there had to be a carcass in the area. But never did I find one.
Somewhere in the night or yesterday when the brother had left the courting couple he’d got himself lucky with a meal, and this morning was swaggering around with a rather swollen tummy.
Banyini was quiet this morning except for the occasional growl from the mating lions.
And I was happy to find the family of 5 jackal together on Banyini. They weren’t hanging around the airstrip any more, which had made me think something had happened to them. Gladly they’re all doing just fine.
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