Lions of Timbavati

[Potato]

Tanda Tula update

To begin with, the Giraffe Pride spent most of the week within our concession in the west, and there was even a report of the younger cubs from what I can gather.  The pride moved in last weekend and sixteen members were found moving back towards our southern boundary, but they stopped just short of it. In the afternoon they turned around and moved back north and spent the following four days in that area.  The Sumatra and Hercules males also joined the pride for a bit.  The Mayambula and River Pride showed face in the east, and the lone Sark Breakaway lioness was also seen in her usual haunts.  However, none of these sightings were the lion sighting of the week.

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

Late one evening whilst I was out on a little bumble looking for Savannah and her son, who we had found that morning close to Plains Camp, I heard a radio call that I had been hoping to get for a long time. I hadn’t really thought I would hear: “stations, I have located on two male lions…one of them is white”.  There was an unusually long silence after that radio call, almost as if the guides were checking to see if the date may have been 1st April and someone was having them on.  I was miles away, but my brain immediately calculating how long it would take me to get there whilst not breaking the speed limit.  In the end, I knew that eventually the silence would be broken and that the other guides would be taking their guests there and I should leave them to enjoy it.  And enjoy it they did!

Scotch managed to get there and enjoy a wonderful sighting with two of the Birmingham males – including the white male who last visited us in July 2020 – as they rested before moving off into the darkness.  Unfortunately, there were also two large male lions in the area (the guides weren’t sure if it was the Skorro males, or Sumatra/Hercules) but the presence of dominant male lions in an area is a sure way of sending young nomadic lions running off in another direction. It appears as though this white lion moved back south a couple of days later.  We can only hope that it isn’t two years until he reappears again, after all, his other brothers did move briefly into our area in July.  The Skorro males showed up at Nkhari Homestead the next night, and after a few days absence the Mayambula Pride did return to the east to round off a rather good week of lion viewing. Reply