Vicious Lovers: Lions at Dusk, Mating, Then Stalking Off For Their Nightly Hunt!
We were out on an afternoon game drive. We had been looking in he area a man had seen two cheetah but were not successful in our search. We enjoyed watching a huge elephant at a waterhole and then were driving on the main road to see what we could see.
We had seen elephant, giraffe, impala, kudu, the ground hornbill and others so we were not disappointed in the drive when suddenly it just got better! We went back out to the main road to toward Lower Sabie to check out the unattended impala corpse in the tree which had been stopping people for a couple days and found two vultures in a nearby tree but no carcass any longer visible.
As we drove on we pulled over so Robert could photograph a giraffe that was feeding near the road. His “guidress” Jackalbessie (Laura), as he called me, was looking ahead and around and she saw something cross the road that looked a lot like a lion! The chase was on! This is why we come to Africa, the possibility of an unexpected wildlife drama around every corner!
We took off and knew there was a dirt road in the direction the lion had headed. We also saw cars stopped on the secondary road and we turned down the road and were rewarded by the sight of the big male lion resting on the side of the road with two large sub adult lions. One of those then got up and walked off and then a female lion appeared, glowing mystically in the dying sunlight.
At first Robert thought it was another male, perhaps an albino, because its mane was so blond and glowing. We quickly surmised that it was a really a mature female because she presented herself in front of him, the big male lion got up, sniffed her and then mounted her. She then whirled and snarled at him, and he roared back at her. She marched off down a dry gulch after the other lions. The dark -maned male then kind of staggered after them. After their interlude, they both snarled and then walked off to begin their evening hunt. From the videos we have seen, the mating process goes on several times while she is ready. What a great way to end a afternoon game drive!
Note about this vicious couple: The male had an almost black mane, whereas the female has something of a blond mane and the tip of her tail was missing.
Robert suggested we celebrate our great adventure by going to the other of the two cafes at Skukuza Camp, the Selati Restarant for dinner, where we had Springbok Medallion and side salad, and met a newly wed couple from the Netherlands and shared stories over several glasses of wine. The Selati has a unique design and doubles as a train museum as well. Great fun splurge from our normal routine of cooking 90 % of our meals to save money.
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