Still very much in her rather mixed up state Manyari and her male spent the night in the Acacia woodland along the Chiredzi River, mating and roaring all night.
The cover is so thick in there I wasn’t able to film anything.
Knowing it would be a night of lions doing their thing, Darryl headed off in search of other activity. He found the elephant herds drinking at Banyini but otherwise all was pretty quiet.
SJAMBOK, is the name of the lion with Manyari at the moment. He’s the male that’s spent most of his time mating with her and possibly slightly bigger than his brother.
‘Sjambok’ is a South African name for a traditional heavy short whip usually made from hippo hide. So why call Sjambok, sjambok? Because his tail hangs loose and sloppy like a sjambok. Usually lion’s tails hang firmly and with a distinct curl upwards in the bottom third. But Sjambok’s hangs loosely, and is especially floppy when he walks.
Sjambok’s brother (still not named) came by in the evening but didn’t stay long and moved on.
At dawn Manyari and Sjambok headed north and then east across the Binya road. At least she now seemed to have a bit of direction in her and wasn’t wandering aimlessly as she had been for most of the night.
Ahead of them the lions noticed a jackal trotting away, but suddenly the 2 of them took off in the opposite direction. They chased a leopard off the remains of an impala kill. Another free meal for the thieving king of beasts.
And of course squabble over this they did with Manyari only getting a few scraps.
Continuing on east (of course only after another mating session) suddenly they dropped out of their romantic mode and into hunting mode. A family of warthog had mistakingly made an appearance and weren’t taking heed of the alarm calls from the impala.
Manyari gave chase in one direction and Sjambok in another. I lost them in the mopanie woodland and was sure they’d missed as warthogs have a deafening scream when caught.
I did eventually find the lions and Manyari had herself a young warthog kill. She was feeding on her own, the male not daring to come too close, and so he lost out. (with a small kill like that she’s able to keep it from him and feed in peace.)
I left them to it and ventured on to Banyini where I was surprised to find this elephant bull in the early morning drinking here. He was quite a character and didn’t mind me approaching to take photographs. But as soon as I backed away to leave he chased me. I stopped, he trumpeted loudly and shook his head. I approached him. He backed off, backed off and backed off until he was in the pan. Then as I turned to leave he again came charging and trumpeting. Again I stopped and he stopped. Again he backed off as I advanced. And again he charged as I tried to leave.
There is no doubt he was just playing with me. Eventually I drove off with him charging but soon giving up.
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