Nxai Pan NP - Day 3

Time to eat

We didn’t think that the lions would be at the waterhole by morning so we were stunned to drive up and find out that not only were they still there but they had been joined by 3 other lionesses!

More lionesses than expected

Four of the five lions were feeding on what was now a pretty depleted carcass. They all fed together for quite a while until one moved off. It wasn’t the end of the show however, because out of nowhere the buffalo herd suddenly appeared. We hadn’t seen them last night and thought that they had moved on so to see them appearing made for a potentially exciting showdown. 

The 3 lions feeding at the carcass immediately went down, while the lioness that had also been feeding trotted off quickly, maybe she’d tangled with buffalo before and decided to stay away? We couldn’t work it out. But the 5th lioness got into a position behind an old zebra carcass so that she was on one side of the buffalo herd and the 3 lions at the kill were on the other. 

Lion vs buffalo

It looked like a coordinated strategy but in the end came to nothing when one of the 3 lions pulled the trigger too early and rushed at the buffalo. They obviously got a huge fright - I’m not even sure they knew the lions were there until the charge, but they didn’t move too far before turning around and slowly coming in right formation towards the lions - just like they show on National Geographic documentaries. The lion that originally charged kept running towards her sister leaving the 2 lions at the kill alone to face the buffaloes. 

Yellow-billed kite keeps an eye out for scraps

They were the younger lions and it was interesting to watch them a bit unsure of what to do in the face of a herd of buffaloes staring you down, especially when the big dagga boys got involved. It was a pretty intense scene to watch with the buffaloes refusing to be intimidated and giving mock charges which would make the lions retreat. Eventually after a particularly aggressive move by the buffaloes, the young lions turned tail and ran to hide behind the kudu carcass. Somewhat satisfied with this outcome, the herd eventually lost interest in the lions and slowly started heading away from the waterhole into the bush. 

Defending her kill

A great sighting for us and hopefully we did it some justice with the photos. Excitement over, all but one of the lions moved off to find some shade. The remaining lioness was left to defend the leftovers from the jackals but it was a losing battle. She desperately wanted to take her leg bone and eat it in peace but each time she moved off the jackals would move towards the carcass forcing her to run back and chase them away. 

A few back and forths of this and finally she gave up to join her pride under the trees, leaving the jackals to the remainder of the carcass. And pandemonium hit. About a dozen black-backed jackals descended on the kudu carcass and there was jostling to get a good piece. Amusingly there wasn’t much fighting but as soon a a jackal grabbed a piece and ran off with it, another would chase him down and a fight would ensue over that scrap. 

Squabbling over scraps

Everywhere jackals were running - towards the carcass, away from it with a scrap or generally running around to find someone else’s scraps. We counted over 20 jackals in total, an unusually high number of these canines to be seen together making the scene at the carcass really unique and a first time experience for us. 

For almost an hour we watched the jackal chaos until it eventually died down with everyone getting their piece of meat and not much left of the kudu. Despite all the drama and intensity, everything was done by 8 o’clock so we decided to leave and take a drive around the pan before it got too hot. But there was nothing much to see, the heat meant that all the animals were under trees already except maybe the springbok that dotted the landscape. 

Marabou storks

So it was back to check the waterholes where the animals were still coming to drink despite 5 lions being nearby. Not that the lions seemed inclined to move - they had found the beat shade tree in the area and showed no signs of getting up for the day. It was back the campsite for lunch where we set up our sun shelter and then did some charging of batteries. 

Finally got the carcass

Since lunch prep had been a bust last night, we decided to have bacon and egg rolls with our remaining buns and then cook pasta at lunchtime rather than chance another windy evening attempt. All went smoothly and we were soon full and a bit dozy so Dru took a nap while Cheryl was entertained by the pied crow in the campsite who would stash any scraps he could find for retrieval later. The afternoon drive was a quiet one for us. 

Jackal and giraffe legs

The lions hadn’t moved from their shade tree when we got to the main waterhole and after a drive around the pan and a quick trip to the other waterhole it appeared nothing had changed. But we were told that 2 of the lions had been up and had an unsuccessful attempt at hunting warthogs so we’d missed that unfortunately. 

The evening at the waterhole was pretty quiet, it seemed that the news of the lions had got around to all the animals and everyone with the exception of a few elephants were avoiding the waterhole. Just before sunset we headed to check out the smaller waterhole but that was only a few straggler elephants so not much to catch especially in poor light. 

Evening light

Luckily no wind in the evening but the sky put on quite a light show with plenty of lighting around. The winds of change are coming to Botswana and will soon usher in a new season of rains.