Searching for the lioness made me nervous all over again. New mothers can be overly protective, and 300 pounds of claws and teeth were reason enough to be cautious. Since she had reprimanded no one since the birth of her offspring this offered some reassurance we could safely observe her and her offspring. Locating them was easier that I thought, since a National Geographic crew was filming her for an upcoming show and guided us right to them. Watching them was most enjoyable. The little fur balls’ eyes had only been open for a few days and everything was new to them. The cubs were exploring their new world, wobbling around on shaky legs, exploring for a few feet and then returning to mom for a quick snack and a confidence check before starting off again. Watching them was pure pleasure.
Some prey animals had caught the attention of the other group and we headed back in their direction to see what if anything would happen. It would have been really cool to witness a hunt. On the way back, we came across the dominant male’s brother. He was equally impressive and his brother tolerated him as long as he did not get too close. We watched for a while, but the herd of Zebra changed direction and moved away from the ambush the pride had set up. I do not know if the wind swirled and alerted the zebra, if they saw one of the lions move, or it was just their lucky day. When we were ready to go, Conrad pulled us close enough for Janice to get her “lion sunset” picture. Janice has taken several sunset pictures with animals in them and she has made it her mission to get as many “animal sunset” pictures as she can. So far this trip she has added the giraffe and some more elephant sunset pictures to her collection. Mission accomplished and we were off for sundowners. Along the way we came across a young female leopard out for an evening’s prowl. We watched her for quite some time as she made her way along the veld, sniffing here and there presumably in an attempt to locate her dinner. Janice almost got a leopard sunset picture out of the encounter but ended up having to settle for an “almost leopard sunset” picture. We made it back in time for “just past” sundowners and had some wonderful beef filets for dinner. The girls headed back right after dinner to get cleaned up, but John and I stayed for cigars and brandy around the campfire.
It was not too bad in the room when the power was on and I could run the fans. A warm shower and the breeze from the fans made things tolerable but when the last guest lights went out the power went off for the rest of the night. Not too bad, but it went to hot as Hades in about 30 seconds. My shower soon was moot as I was sweaty again in no time. It eventually cooled off around 2:00 AM and I was able to doze off to the lullaby of elephants rumbling about the waterhole
Aw mom
Bath Time
Ms. Spots
Wonder what is under there?
Beautiful lady leopard
