Lions of Timbavati

[Potato]

Tanda tula update

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This week belonged to the lions, and the Sark Breakaways in particular.  They spent the entire week on Nkhari within our central regions and gave us great daily sightings of the cubs.  This was bittersweet, as it appears as though they lost a cub during the week?  At the end of last week, five cubs stayed hidden at a den and one went following the pride for a couple of days, but when we caught up with them again on a giraffe kill, only five of the six cubs were present.  Despite returning to the old den sight later in the week, there was no miraculous return of the missing cub, and with the mothers not seeming particularly concerned about his/her whereabouts, it appears as though it is sadly no longer with us.  As mentioned, the pride got a much needed meal when they were found with a large adult female giraffe near Nkhari Homestead one morning.  I arrived expecting to see a small group of adult lions with the cubs, and a load of meat left on the carcass, but instead we found very little meat, and a load of lions.

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In the afternoon, with the pride once more gathered around the carcass, we got to count nineteen members.  This was interesting, as I mentioned last week that the pride were now up to eighteen members, and they had lost a cub since I made this statement!  I didn’t trust Eric’s counting, so I counted myself, and sure enough, there were nineteen lions; five cubs, four subadults and ten adults.  This was the odd part, as the pride only had eight adults in their makeup!  Somehow, one young male and another female had arrived at the giraffe kill and were allowed to feed and rest with the pride without any issues, even with the five young cubs around!  I am waiting on confirmation, but it was the same single young male we saw last week that I assumed was a Mayambula Pride member.  Perhaps without the pride males around,and loads of food for all,  the rest of the pride didn’t think it was worth getting involved in a fight with these strange lions.  Three Vuyela males did pitch up the next day and sent the pride moving off to the west.  They made a return the next day, and we had a couple of wonderful days with the pride and their playful cubs to close off the week.

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The River Pride made a couple of appearances this week, and it appears as though the two lionesses with the new cubs have once more moved their den into our concession, but at the moment, the cubs have yet to be brought out of hiding for us to enjoy.  The Vuyela males were a little scarce this week, but they were found on most days of the week.  We began the week tracking down a male with the remains of a waterbuck kill in the thickets of the Nhlaralumi; he eventually left it to the hyenas and moved off.  The Giraffe Pride were reported in the west a couple of times this week, but with such good lion viewing close to Tanda Tula, we didn’t need ot make the trip west. Reply