When I joined the lions at dusk Manyari had already left the males and was heading north on her own calling repeatedly as she went. It would seem she’s looking for her lioness friend Magwaza.
The males would sometimes call back at her but she seemed to be ignoring them.
Having headed about 5kms north Manyari headed east, stopped calling and was now in hunting mode. She hunted impala, impala, wildebeest, impala, impala, impala, wildebeest, impala, zebra, giraffe, impala and wasn’t successful with any of them.
Around 3am she started calling again and kept heading east. Near HQ she hunted waterbuck unsuccessfully. And further east of this the males joined her with their usual competitive edge wanting to be by her side.
We lost them in the hills and near Simbiri camp and then heard all the commotion. After much negotiating through the hills I found them. Manyari was moving away, but one lion was on the porch of a small building and the other was behind the building staring at the window. Only then did I realise what was happening.
Imagine this: the lion sees his reflection in the window and being a highly territorial male, is now highly hacked off at this ‘intruder’ so he calls his brother. Thinking he’ll have the upper edge with 2 against one, he suddenly sees in the reflection another lion approaching just as his brother gets there. Mass confusion and a serious reason to fight any ‘intruders’. Luckily the lions weren’t able to get to the windows, as they would surely have smashed them.
And so the king finds himself a new fool.
The males only gave up on the ‘intruders’ about half an hour later and followed Manyari south across the airstrip to rest.
An elephant bull was close by trying to push over an Acacia tortilis tree. He tried from several angles but just couldn’t go it.
Seemingly embarrassed that we’d been watching his silly antics he sauntered right up to the vehicle, gave us the once over as he tried to save grace and then walked on by.
By now the sun was well up, Manyari hadn’t given us any time to rest last night and so it was straight back to camp.
AND oh no!!! I’ve still got a puncture to fix.
What a story ! I hope nobody was in the building, it must be quite something to have 2 male lions wanting to fight with your window LOL
Great video !
I wonder : how do you tell the difference between male and female elephants ? I guess you can tell by the size of their body and their tusks, but how do you tell the difference when they’re young then ? Is it their general body shape or something ?
I also have another question about elephants. In fact I am going to do a training course about them in the Pendjari National Park in Benin. I am going to try to evaluate areas of high and low population by counting the number of clearings created by the elephants, by pushing trees over and flattening an area.
I read in a book that it is mostly bulls that push trees over, and that not all bull elephants do it, only some individuals become ’specialists’. What do you think ? Do females also push trees over ? Does it happen more often with males ?
I thought maybe you could answer this question, as you spend so much time with elephants.
Regards,
Jonas
Wow!! Imagine someone in the little building…either exiting the porch rather quickly (throwing coffee and mug to the winds), or glancing at the window, and going thru the roof when bracketed by two roars!! Schazam! A whole different prospect from watching one of our resident male redbirds going flutter mad with side mirror on the Firebird!
Hi Kim,
Just curious to know who lives in that building that the male lion saw his reflection on. Is it part of a lone house? a camp?. Imagine waking up in the middle of the night to get some water and who is looking straight at you? a Lion!
Jonas: elephant bulls tend to have a more rounded forehead and the cows a very angular one. Obviously the bulls are larger than the cows too. Also animals found on their own will nearly always be males. Yes it’s mainly the bulls that push over trees. I once followed a bull from sunrise to sunset and he alone pushed over 26 trees. Some bulls tend to push over more trees than others. Cows will push over the odd tree but nothing like the bulls.
Ivanova: nobody lives in there. it’s a small bar area, well used to be.
Thank you very much for the answer !
Hi everyone, - stumbled on your current web-site inadvertently when roaming around the internet this evening, and happy that i did! I like the page layout and tones, but I have to point out that I’m having difficulties when it loads. I’m making use of Shiira 2 web browser for mac, and the side panel will not align fully. i’m pretty sure I have employed the same layout on a customer’s web site, but the menu seems fine on mine. I suspect the fault is with my browser and I guess it is time to update!
These days, Lady Gaga is among the most mediatical musician in the whole world. Almost everything she says propagates immediately and she becomes the talk of the day. Perhaps her natural talent don’t be like her exposition, but certainly it fits on the purpose and she is intensely loved by her little monsters.