Well today I blew it royally. Thinking I had downloaded my photos off my camera, I deleted them from the card. Alas no images for last night. I might just have to draw on yesterdays.
The Nyari pride continued to head south after dark.
Impala were first on the menu. Magwaza moved round on the flank and then nothing happened. Instead the other 3 spent the next 1½ hours searching for her. No wonder they can’t find the prey, they can’t even find their comrade. Eventually they resorted to roaring and half an hour later Magwaza arrived.
The pride continued on south. This has to be the very extreme south of their territory, but anyway we don’t know of any lions occupying this area.
And all night nothing else but a few impala appeared and disappeared.
Why do they hunt these areas that have such a low density of animals? Surely they must learn this after time and again not having success in this area? But then they are lions and I don’t credit them with much intelligence.
It was only with dawn approaching that they got lucky. They heard something to the east and bolted off in that direction eventually coming across a fresh zebra carcass not even half eaten. They tucked in without hesitation on their stolen bounty.
Then the culprits slowly started appearing out the woodwork, 5 young lionesses. They seemed pretty relaxed and when one approached to feed the Nyari pride weren’t too concerned and she eventually ended up feeding with them. I think these youngsters are from the Nduna pride and some of them are Manyari’s youngsters.
But only the one came to feed.
When the Nyari pride had split up with the carcass, Sjambok eyed out the other lions as they approached hoping for scraps. Well Sjambok was having none of it and with a raging temper chased them to hell and back. He gave up after about 500m.
And we gave up on the lions as they picked away at the scraps with their already fully distended stomachs.
Well technology let us down yesterday and I wasn’t able to load Wildcast. So today’s video is from yesterday.
We didn’t go filming last night with lions so well fed and bound to be lying around all night. Instead I spent the afternoon looking for the wild dogs and again this morning but still no joy. They were seen the day before yesterday in a similar area they’ve been seen before and the female was apparently very pregnant. But only the 2 dogs, whereas in the past we’ve been seeing the group of 3. It could be possible that the other female is in the den already with new pups.
The search will go on but we’ll be back with the lions tonight.
Still a great video, sorry about the camera trouble.
Loved the shot of the hind legs - amazing musculature!!!
I was thinking Jerry Haigh..He is a veterinarian who worked all over Africa for many years. I am reading his book ‘The trouble with Lions’ and he was also the professor of one of my colleagues at the animal hospital I work at.
Iva
Oh yes, must totally agree that it is a great video. I got to see it in “slow mo,” as satellite acquired it in small increments; and was it ever astounding to watch the young lioness come in for part of her kill, thank you very much!
Must confess to surprise at Sjambok chasing off five young lionesses. So he is finally sated, who would have ever guessed!?
If there were five lionesses, just how big is the Nduna pride?
b.
the Nduna pride was 14 lions before the split. And then they’ve now had an addition of 6 cubs. but I’m not sure who is actually in the pride. i haven’t seen the mothers and cubs since the cubs were 3 months old. they’re now about 8months.
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