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| Male lions watched on by the zebras |
A good day yesterday, so could today live up to it? There was no question about where we were heading to first – Wamilombe! So it was through the gate past the same self-drive car that was shooting the sunrise again and straight to the plain.
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| Lounging on Wamilombe first thing in the morning |
And for the 2nd day in a row, it paid off –
lions! The lions that we’d seen the
night before had moved all the way from the gate through riverside drive to
Wamilombe and were now sleeping on the plain – a male and 2 females. That was quite a distance from where we’d
left them the previous night. And then
we spotted another male a bit further into the plain sleeping on his own. So 2 males and 2 females in total.
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| Lazy lion |
The spot that we found them couldn’t be spotted from the
main road, so we were curious to see if anyone else would drive past and see
them, but in the meantime, they weren’t moving so we wanted to do a quick round
through the plain and the adjacent loop just to make sure there wasn’t anything
else around that we were missing.
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| One of the females has a short tail |
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| An unexpected bonus with a leopard on a tree |
She was awake but didn’t seem to be giving any indication of getting up and so we had a really nice dilemma on our hands – lions or leopard? We decided to go back to the lions for a while, the deciding factor being light.
The morning sun was going to be on the lions, who were out in the open, hopefully giving us some nice shots if the lions decided to move, while the leopard was in deep shade and unless she got up, the photos would be grainy and probably not great until it got a bit brighter. It was a hard decision, but eventually we headed back to the lions.
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| She was pretty sleepy and didn't look like she'd get up anytime soon |
On the way, we passed a safari vehicle who had managed to miss the lions. The entrance to the plain is such that unless you skirt along the side you could miss the small area where the lions were lying. We’d seen the vehicle and knew that they hadn’t gone down the right road, so had missed the lions. So we became instant heroes by not only telling them about the lions, but also a bonus sighting of a leopard 😉
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| Awake for a bit |
We were soon back with the lions, who luckily hadn’t done
much since we’d left them. The male
closest to us was awake and the lionesses were moving around, but no one seemed
too keen to move off, probably because it was pretty cool despite them being in
the open. On the other hand, the other
pride male was fast asleep in the middle of the plain, surrounded by wary puku
and impala.
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| His brother also looked up briefly before going back to sleep again |
And then they all fell asleep again, completely ignoring the cars that were coming by as word spread of the cats on Wamilombe. Finally, after almost an hour the lioness with the short tail got up and started to move around, closely followed by the male that wasn’t asleep. He seemed interested in whether she was in oestrus but she was having none of it, and gave him a sharp growl to let him know in no uncertain terms that she’d prefer to be alone.
Amongst all the safari vehicles was one other self-drive car
– the same car we’d seen on the bridge every morning for the last 3 days
photographing the sunrise. Even though we
hadn’t spoken to them so far, in the spirit of helping out self-drivers, we
stopped to tell them about the leopard giving them precise directions to find
her even though it was pretty straightforward.
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| Closely watched while he goes back to sleep |
Although it was cloudy, it was starting to get a bit hotter and soon the lions were on the move, with the exception of the sleeping male, where concerned puku were replaced by concerned zebras keeping a close eye on the lion.
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| Finally up with a big stomach |
One by one the lions slowly headed off into the bushes for
shade, and this seemed to cue the sleeping lion as well, with him finally
rising and heading straight towards us since we’d positioned ourselves well
scaring all the zebras who were already skittish. Eventually, he too ended up in the bushes
probably to sleep off the heat of the day in the shade, and the lion scene was
finished.
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| Watched closely, the lion saunters off to sleep |
The lions were gone, but we still had a leopard up our sleeve so there was no question where we were going next. Amusingly, while we were sitting with the lions we’d seen the other self-drive vehicle driving up and down as if they hadn’t found the leopard. They were straightforward directions and they couldn’t find it? Surely not, maybe the leopard had climbed down the tree.
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| A quick look before heading towards the bushes |
As we neared the leopard, we came across the same self-drive car again going in the opposite direction. So we stopped and they told us that they just couldn’t find it… what?! Luckily we were headed that way so told them to follow us, hoping that the leopard was still there and that we weren’t leading them on a wild goose chase.
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| In the branches of a flowering sausage tree |
And luckily the leopard was still there in the same spot, so the self-drivers were pretty happy and thanked us for the tip. By now the leopard sighting was well known and we spent quite a bit of time off to the side while the safari vehicles came and went with happy guests having snapped photos of a leopard in a tree.
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| Leopard paw |
We decided to leave her for a while as there were no signs
of her getting up and went back to the bigger plain, catching a cute baby
elephant learning to use his trunk on the way.
We found some playful baboons and then vultures hanging around a dead
tree in the middle of the pan. The lions
must have killed something in the night, or the leopard had and the lions had
stolen it from her.
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| Juvenile hooded vulture |
Either way, there was nothing left as we could see no
remains but the vultures and a couple of juvenile fish eagles seemed to think
it was worth still hanging around there so there must have been a few scraps
around.
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| Adult hooded vulture |
Back to the leopard and we were amused to find the resident
male puku under the sausage tree that the leopard was still sleeping in without
any idea there was a cat keeping an eye on him.
He must have been bewildered as to why there were so many cars nearby
just to see him 😉
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| Just arriving to look for scraps |
Eventually he wondered off – maybe a tad too big for the
female leopard – but she was eyeing something else. A few impala females had wandered into the
pan and were making use of another smaller sausage tree for shade.
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| The resident puku ram didn't know there was a leopard lying above him |
And suddenly without warning the leopard was down the tree,
her eyes trained on the impala. She lay
in the shade of the bushes before leopard crawling to the safari vehicles! She
used them as cover while she watched the antelope.
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| Focused on impalas while using cars as cover |
She actually lay there is the sun between 2 vehicles for about 5 minutes keeping track of the impala with all the guests holding their breath in anticipation of a potential hunt.
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| Deciding it wasn't going to work she slunk off |
But eventually the leopard decided that the odds weren’t in her favour and just as silently and stealthily she crept away and back into her tree and promptly went back to sleep on the same branch. It was fascinating to watch and especially amusing that the impalas none the wiser that they were potentially a hearty brunch.
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| A last look before getting back into the tree |
By now there were only 3 vehicles left, and we all had the
same thought – would she try to hunt again?
It was really hot by now, so each of the cars picked a different tree
away from the leopard tree and decided to wait a while and see if the impala
got any closer to her sausage tree – it was after all the best shade of the
pan.
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| Back in the tree for a nap |
But after about an hour or so, nothing had happened except for a safari vehicle or 2 driving up to the tree to get some sightings, so eventually we decided to let it go and headed back to our campsite, stopping on the way to photograph 2 bull elephants enjoying a drink in a waterhole outside the park in the game management area.
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| Game can be found outside the park too |
As
our guide on the night drive explained, these are probably the same elephants
that come at night from the national park to raid the crops of the local
villages before sneaking back into the park in the morning!
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| A potential crop raider ;) |
A couple of beers at the bar and lunch in the camp and it
was back for the afternoon drive. Not unexpectedly the leopard had disappeared from the tree and the lions had not
yet made an appearance so we occupied ourselves photographing birds, the hippos
in the water and whatever other plains game we could find.
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| Thornicroft's giraffes can be identified by lack of markings on lower legs |
And eventually we found the lions just as they were emerging from the bush where they were sleeping. 2 of the lionesses and one of the males came out and sat on the plain for a few moments, but then for some reason decided it was not for them and went straight back to the area they’d been sleeping.
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| Arriving through the golden grass |
It was a bit too far from the road for any
good photos but was quite entertaining to watch when a flock of helmeted
guineafowl proceeded to mob one of the males as he walked further away from the
road towards bushes that were further away.
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| Lion brothers |
By now it was about 5 o’clock and we decided to slowly head towards the gate via riverside drive just to see if anything was around, mainly a leopard on the prowl.
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| One of the males was mobbed by the guineafowls |
Instead we came across the same self-drivers that we’d shown the leopard to, and from the chat discovered that he is an award winning photographer that was on a trip with his wife and sister-in-law touring around Zambia for about 6 weeks. We recognised his name as someone we follow on Instagram for his great shots – always nice to put a face to the photos 😉
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| Lilac breasted roller |
He gave us a tip that there were some lions further up in front of Mfuwe Lodge and we soon headed there although by now the sun had almost set and the light was poor. And soon we found a few lionesses that based on their stomachs had eaten a baby hippo!
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| Looking like a baby hippo |
One of the lionesses was lying on her back legs in the air near the Mfuwe waterhole, while one of her sisters staggered up to the road before flopping down, also legs in the air struggling to breathe with that full stomach!
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| Her sister was also too full to move! |
Eventually we left the road lying lioness getting to the gate up the road just before closing time – another really good day in South Luangwa!
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