Lions of Timbavati

[Potato]

Tanda Tula update

I did return from my leave towards the end of the week and went out for a few drives with a friend who had come out from the UK to join the run. We had a good few days on drive, and in a couple of days had seen the Big and wild dogs without much trouble. The lions had not been as active this week as last, but the dynamics remain interesting. A few members of the Birmingham Breakaway coalition paid us a visit for the first time in a couple of months. The Mayambula pride remained more elusive this week, although yesterday we did have tracks for the whole pride coming into Tanda Tula, sadly Steven and Eric tracked them back out to the eastern boundary. Glen had an equally frustrating tracking session trailing tracks for what we thought was the Sark Breakaway Pride; he found where they had killed a buffalo, but all that was left were scraps that the hyenas were finishing off. After that, it appeared as though the lions were hunting again as their tracks were going up and down in all directions, and it was difficult to make heads or tails of them. Returning to the tracks after lunch, Glen and Given managed to get a direction on where the lions moved, but as they tracked, more and more sets of tracks joined their “trail”, and it was soon realised that it was, in fact, the Giraffe Pride that had made their way to the far eastern reaches of their territory (only the second time we have seen signs of them this far east before) and that it was their activity on the kill that had attracted the Vuyela males to the area – the up and down of the tracks after the kill was not their hunting, but rather them running away from the opposing males. The tracks eventually crossed out of the concession some 8km from where we began tracking in the morning; a big frustration, but sometimes that is how the bush works. Two days before the Giraffe Pride had been left resting together in the morning in the west, but when we passed through the area in the afternoon, we only came across a single lioness, and another group of only three individuals, and Steven found the sickly Sumatra male on his own too; exactly what caused that split is a bit of a mystery, but the next day they were all together again before they once again got split up by the Vuyela males. These males could be heard roaring most nights this week around Tanda Tula Safari Camp, but they were quite active to the north of our concession where it appears as though one of the River Pride lionesses has given birth not too far north of our concession. We did see the other two River Pride lionesses a few times during the week. Reply