Lions of Timbavati

[Potato]

Tanda Tula update

The lion sightings continued to be good, although most of the sightings were limited to the Mayambula Pride in the east.  The pride even ventured as far as Nkhari, and the two Skorro males were seen with a couple of the females close to Nkhari Homestead, and a few days later four of the younger pride members were feasting on a kill a few hundred metres downstream from Tanda Tula Field Camp!

The three mothers with the eight growing cubs began introducing the cubs to meat, and were taken to two separate wildebeest kills over the course of the week.  I had a slightly frustrating afternoon when I headed to where the pride had been seen on a kill in the morning, but when we arrived we found only a single hyena feeding on the remains of the kill, and the pride had moved into an area that was just too thick to track in.  We did manage to see one of the Skorro males on the search for his partner which was some consolation, and we were lucky to see the lionesses and cubs back at one of the den sites the next afternoon.

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Guy found three of the Vuyela males in the west one morning when they seemed to be testing the waters to the south, but they soon moved back north.  Foreman also found two lionesses from the Sark Breakaways on his way between camps one afternoon and notified the guides.  The guides that were closest followed up and found them, and quite amazingly, whilst following them the one lioness lay down and gave birth to a cub in front of them in the middle of nowhere, almost as if the birth took her by surprise!!!  When she moved off with the cub, they wisely closed down the area to give the mother some privacy and we await to hear how the cubs are doing.  One other Sark lioness spent a couple of days in the west too after feasting on a warthog.  There was no sign of the Giraffe or River Prides this week.

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Videos from a birth of mentioned cub:
https://www.facebook.com/kambakulodge/videos/381134300234624
https://www.facebook.com/kambakulodge/videos/636749704090428 Reply