Lions of Timbavati

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Lions of Timbavati

Fredymrt

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#544

12-03-2017, 06:37 PM

From: Motswari blog
News

24 November 2017

*This image is copyright of its original author

Friday was a cloudy day, but it started with Eric saying that he had heard the lions roaring to the south of camp, so Kevin and I began checking the area, and soon Eric and Kevin had tracks for two males on our airstrip moving south and having not found tracks coming out of the area, we dropped the trackers off and began widening our search in the vehicles; Chané soon found where they had walked on top of Henry’s vehicle tracks a couple of kilometres ahead of us, and we moved into that area, knowing that they couldnt be far; we followed the tracks to a nearby pan, and then saw where they had moved away from that, past another pan and then eventually found the two male lions resting on the road; much to my surprise it was the two Western Pride males, and not the Kruger males as I had been suspecting – perhaps the Western Pride males got wind of the fact that these new males had chased their pride away from that area a few days earlier and came just to let them know who the real bosses were. Well, at least one of them is a boss, the other male looks like he is on death’s door! He is in an absolutely terrible condition, and really cant go on for long – skin and bone, and his eye is looking terrible. Sad to see, but it is part of nature, and the other male is looking in fantastic condition – how such a stark contrast in conditions arises is a mystery, but it is entirely possible that it is related to TB-resistence, whereby the stronger male is genetically predisposed to be less susceptible to the TB. They are the same age, grew up together, have lived together, but the difference in condition is incredible. We left them resting and carried on to the east in a light drizzle hoping to find some wild dogs, but it was not really happening out there this morning.

After a sundowner we headed east hoping to see the male lions roaring, but arrived to find that they had moved off…luckily, they hadnt moved far and we caught up with them as they finished drinking at a pan and move back north; the bigger male waited for his skinny partner but moved off a little later without him and we opted to leave the skinny guy in peace and head back to the lodge satisfied with a lovely afternoon.

*This image is copyright of its original author

28 November 2017
kept us company as we headed towards the lion, and we found another male rhino before arriving at the lion as he got mobile, but as with most things these days, he too was limping! It appeared to be the Sumatra male lion, but I am not 100 percent sure; what I was sure about was that he was going to roar for us, and when he arrived on our western boundary, he lay down on the comfortable tarred road and gave us two awesome roars as the sun set on another great day! We were miles and miles from the lodge, and had a long drive home that didnt produce anything exciting, but it was a good day in perfect weather!

*This image is copyright of its original author

29 November 2017
This morning was my last drive for a couple of days, and I wanted to check out in the east to see if the lions and come back, but decided to check on Ntima male leopard and his kill first. In bright sunlight we headed off towards the area but arrived to find nothing – no leopard, no steenbuck, no wild dogs. How 24 hours can change a scene! Henry picked up tracks for a lone lioness coming from the south towards Giraffe’s Nest, and I made my way towards him to help as the Difference and Patrick started following on foot. A herd of buffalos and a wild dog disappeared into Kruger before I could get them, but with lions roaring to the north-east of where the trackers were tracking, I headed into that area, but soon found tracks for the whole Western Pride moving into our area and back form where they had disappeared yesterday.

The trackers decided to leave the tracks for the lone lioness and follow up on the pride’s tracks – much easier tracking nine of them than one of them! Whilst watching two hyenas, Chris radioed to say that there was a lioness in front of the lodge, so we headed towards the area and soon found a fat lioness walking below the wall; she joined up with an equally fat young male lion and walked down our access road and drank at a pool of water in a rocky outcrop. It was clear that they had recently fed, and with the trackers still on the tracks, we thought that they might have had a kill north of the camp. The vultures however descended nearby, and when one of the lions walked a little further east, Henry followed and found the rest of the pride resting in the shade of a marula tree as one young male fed on the reason for their fat bellies…a massive buffalo kill! Some 30km of driving around searching, and all we needed to have done was drive 800m down the road from the lodge to have found them! Anyway, it was a great reward for a morning’s effort. A few questions remained – was the lioness the trackers were originally tracking from the pride, or just the lone Sumatra lioness? Which lion was roaring to the north-east? And how long will they be there for…the latter will be the easiest to answer, but it should be for a good couple of days.

Some sad news though for the pride, the one pride male that we was in such a terrible condition last week was found dead on Ingwelala yesterday, so the pride is officially down to one male; a sad part of the bush, but after having seen him a few days back, death was the kindest fate that could have befallen him.

I will be back on drive on Friday afternoon, so will resume with the updates then!

Enjoy the remainder of the week ? Lol