South Luangwa NP, Zambia - Day 5

Morning stroll along the river bank.

The plan was the same as the previous afternoon - look for the male lion since we’d hardly seen any lions on our trip. So it was off to Luangwa Wafwa first thing in the morning.  It took us a while, but we eventually located the male basking on the river bank at the base of the cliff.  He looked really fat - like he’d eaten a buffalo ;)

And it seemed that he had been back at the carcass overnight, but now he was a couple hundred meters away from it and so it didn’t appear that he was going to go back to it.  In fact, it didn’t seem like he was going to do much of anything, and since the photo opportunities were limited as he was about 10 meters below us, we decided to leave him for a bit and see what else was around.  

We’d been told by our neighbours that had been on an evening drive the night before that a couple of leopards had been around in this same area.  It was believed that they were mating leopards and they’d made a kill but hyeanas had stolen it from them.  So we were hoping to see if we could track them down.  Indeed, we came across another game drive vehicle that’s we’d seen every day with only a single tourist and they were quite friendly.  They were looking for the same thing as us, but after driving around neither of us could find it and even eventually we gave up and went back to the lion.  

The Male lion (left) watches the fisherman on the opposite bank. 

He had actually moved, but the reason was oddly amusing.  A man had come down to the river to fish (the other side of the river isn’t national park so it seems there is some sort of arrangement that allows them to do some fishing - or not and they’re doing it illegally) right opposite to where the lion had been lying.  We’re not sure whether the fisherman had seen him, but the lion had slunk off up the side of the cliff and was now sitting in the bushes watching the fisherman.  Be careful - you never know who is watching you in the bush…

It was time to leave the lion and head back over to the other side, again to see if the leopard had come to finish off the warthog, but surprisingly it was untouched.  We did however come across the baboon troop with the albino baby and this time they were walking along the road, giving us some better shots than the day before.

The rest of the morning was quiet and hot.  We chilled out at one of the lagoons for a while watching a couple of elephants drinking and being entertained by a tree squirrel going absolutely mental about a monitor lizard that was looking for something to eat.  The monitors will grab any baby squirrels so we could see why the squirrel wouldn’t let up his alarm calling, even coming close enough to the lizard to nip his tail.  The harrassment worked and eventually the monitor lizard moved off.  Score one for the prey.

Midday approached and that was our cue to head out of the park for lunch.  A couple of beers at the bar while watching the elephants at the small waterhole were enjoyed before we headed to the campsite for lunch and some relaxation before the afternoon drive.

Since the only cat that we’d seen for the day was the male lion, we wanted to head back there in the afternoon and see if we could catch him again, but when we got to the area we didn’t see anything.  But a bit of scouting about and eventually we found the lazy cat, down the cliff at the river’s edge sleeping the afternoon away in the shade.

He didn’t seem like he would be moving anytime soon, so we decided to drive around the area to see if anything else was around and come back to him later when it was a bit cooler  and eventually we ended up at the water where all the pelicans were hanging out.  

We spent quite a bit of time watching them, including catching a crocodile swimming through the group of pelicans and seeing a juvenile saddle-billed stork hassling a yellow billed stork that had managed to grab a fish.  In the end, he hassled the stork so much that he dropped the fish back in the water and neither bird got the meal and the fish lived to swim another day!

Soon enough it was time to resume our search for the lion and so we headed back to where we’d found him.  And luckily for us he’d moved back onto the top of the cliff and was sitting just watching the surrounds.  It was a different perspective to photograph him with the Luangwa river in the background.

Acting the king while checking out the far bank.

Frustratingly, the lion wouldn’t look towards us, choosing instead to survey the river in the opposite direction in beautiful afternoon light.  Another vehicle that we’d chatted to before also came to check him out but he studiously ignored us both.  But then just after they left it was like a trigger for the lion to get up and he started to walk directly towards us eventually staring straight at us as he passed the car - awesome!

       

We repositioned the car to catch him walking towards us again with the Luangwa river in the background and again he obliged.  After a second pass by he moved further behind us and lay next to a scraggly bush.  We got a few photos of him where he was actually above us, offering an unusual perspective.  We stayed with him for a while but he didn’t seem to be planning on moving any time soon, and if we carried on the same direction he’d been walking, we wouldn’t be able to follow, so we left him to see what else was around.

Unfortunately, besides a giraffe at the river and a herd of buffalo we didn’t see much and soon our evening drive was cut short but looming rains.  The area that we were driving in had some black cotton soil and we were keen to get off it and back onto gravel before the road became a slippery mess.  And with the fading light and the rain, we decided to get out of the park as there didn’t seem to be much to see.