Lions of Timbavati

[Timbavati]

Another week, another blog – it seems like just yesterday I sat down to write up about our sightings and yet, here I am again.  As they say, time flies when you’re having fun!  Fortunately, it has been another very pleasant week here at Tanda Tula Safari Camp and it has been wonderful to welcome back some new and old faces; both in terms of guests and animals! 

Although I have been writing these blogs the past couple of weeks with dooms day prophecies for our River Pride, the encouraging news is that for now, they seem to be carrying on without having had any known altercations with the new Skorro males.  We only caught up with the pride on a couple of occasions, and the limping lioness’s paw seems to slowly be getting better.  The cubs are looking good, and although we didn’t find them on any kills this past week, they were maintaining decent shape.    

The Mayambula Pride spent three days to the North of our concession on a buffalo kill, but did return to their old haunts after they had satisfactorily gorged themselves, and we caught up with these impressive girls on our eastern boundary before we tracked them down in the South-east a few days later.  Upon driving into the sighting we could see that the lionesses were in the presence of a large male lion and I assumed it was one of the Skorro males.   Approaching cautiously, I was very pleased at how calm he was with our presence, but couldn’t get a great view due to his position behind a bush.  After the lionesses regrouped a short distance away, the male lion stood up and limped over to them, and it quickly hit us that this was the limping Nharhu male back with this pride!  This means that these poor girls are having to juggle the attention of two different male lion groupings and it is no surprise they are continuously throwing themselves at the males to keep the peace.  They must be incredibly confused and stressed with having to be friendly with males that seem not to be too keen on their advances.   

As it turns out, the Skorro males have not been seen this week and our one attempt at tracking them showed them moving back East away from our concession.  With the River Pride gravitating further to the West, it seems as though the two Sark Breakaway lions have decided to seek new areas to reside.  The young lioness and male (who incidentally was the male on the wildebeest kill last week, and not the young Giraffe male as I wrote) were found with a male nyala kill early in the week. They spent a day resting off their fat bellies and then headed North out of our concession. From the reports we received, they just kept moving in that direction!  The Giraffe lionesses and one of their pride males were also reported in the West on two occasions, but with all the lions hanging out around Safari Camp, we didn’t venture out there. 
Photo below context: A good capture of the Sark breakaway young male
Photo credits: Chad Cocking

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