Lion Anatomy- Teeth

Lions, being carnivores have specialised teeth to suit their diet and life style. The large canines are the first thing you think of when you imagine a lion tooth. but the molars and pre-molars are modified into what is called a carnassial shear, and play an important role in lion feeding. Lions don’t chew their food as we do, they use the carnassial shear to cut and slice flesh into small enough pieces to swallow.

The Carnassial Shear is the pre-molars and molars that have evolved into a very effective slicer, much like a pair of scissors cut. As you can see from the image above the carnassial teeth fit together perfectly with this sharp jagged edge lions use it to cut meat into sizable chunks, the photograph on the right in the image above you can see the lion ’chewing’ with the side of his mouth, using the carnassials and cutting through skin and flesh easily.

The large canines are not really used in feeding but they are very effective weapons in the hunt, uses include gripping prey, and they are the main teeth used in the famous choke hold. This choke hold is used to kill the prey, the idea is to close the airways by clamping down on the throat, the canines lock into the meat in the neck and stop the prey pulling out of the hold. On smaller prey this may be done by covering the animals muzzle with their mouth, the lion can still breath through its nose.

The much smaller incisors are used for extra grip in the choke hold as well as for pulling and tugging on internal organs that may need more delicate handling, such as the stomach lining. The stomach lining is often removed from the carcass in tact and put a sized, this could be because the stomach contents may taint the meat. Depending on how hungry the lions are the lining may be eaten, but the stomach contents being partially digested vegetation are alway left.

After a lion kill the only evidence you will see is the left over stomach contents, the horns and hooves which cannot be digested, and the larger bones. Smaller bones are often crunched up using the carnassials and eaten, but the larger bones such as the pelvis and skull are chewed but are too large to fit into the mouth to break.

Lion Anatomy- The Eye

A lions eyesight is arguably their most important sense. Along with a highly developed sense of smell and incredible hearing, these apex predators have a big advantage over most of their prey. Their eyesight, all though no better than ours during the day is far superior at night, lions are said to be able to see eight times better than us in the dark. 

Lions see mainly in blue and greens, with highly developed night vision. This doesn’t mean they can see in the dark, if it where pitch black a lion would be blind as well. The way a lions eye is designed helps them pick up and amplify very faint light such as the that emitted from stars and the moon.

Their eyes are able to enhance this faint light through a number of methods-

Inside the eye-

• There are more rod cells than cone cells in the retina of the eye. These are photoreceptor (light-sensetive) cells, cone cells being colour sensitive and rod cells are light-sensitive. Lions having more light sensitive cells packed tightly in the fovea (most sensitive area of the retina), this means they only need 1/6th of the light that humans need to see in.

  

  Eye Shine, created by the reflective layer at the back of the eye.

• Lions have what is known as a Tapetum lucidum, this is a reflective layer of cells positioned behind the retina. This means that light entering the eye will be absorbed by either the rod or cone cells, light that passes through the retina and the photoreceptor cells is reflected back by the Tapitum lucidum and the light-sensitive cells have a second chance to absorb the light waves, in effect doubling the effectiveness of their night vision. This reflective layer results in the eerie ‘eye shine’ that you see when you shine a light on animals at night. Most animals have this layer to a varying degree, but one animal I have noticed doesn’t have eye shine is the rhino.

 Outside the Eye-

This photograph shows the white patches under lion eyes, reflecting faint light into the eye enhancing night vision.

• Sounds strange but the outside characteristics of a lions face enhance their night vision. The white strips under their eyes reflect faint light into the eyes, maximising the amount of light entering the eye.  This characteristic is a good indication that this animal is nocturnal, if you look at cheetah eyes the opposite is true. Cheetah have black tear marks reducing the glare, while they are hunting in the daylight hours. Much like the way an American Footballer puts black face paint under their eyes. 

Looking closely at the cheetahs face you will notice the black tear marks under the eye, helping reduce gland.

To sum up human senses are very different to animals relying mostly on our large brain to get us through life. Our eyesight and our hearing is fairly good while our sense of smell is very weak compared to most animals. Being humans our perception of the world around us is very narrow and it is very hard for us to imagine anything over and above what we can sense and see. For instance many snakes have heat sensitive receptors on their face, giving them a thermal image of their surroundings. Many birds can also see Ultra-Violet lightwaves, but that is a whole different story.

Lion Anatomy- Paws

Lion Paws have evolved specifically for a lion’s way of life and are as important for survival as say the jaws or any other part of a lions weaponry. The Paws, hiding some of the lions most deadly weapons- the claws. As well as being specially adapted for silent movement.

Lions walk in a digitate fashion, meaning that their foot bones are adapted in such a way that they walk on their toes. As opposed to humans that have a plantigrade motion, meaning we ‘plant’ our whole foot on the ground. Digitate movement has evolved specifically for silent movement and if you look at the foot structure for most predators they will have this bone structure. As an extra adaptation lions have hair in between their toes muffling the sound even more. Lions have five toes on the front foot and four on the back foot. The fifth digit on the front foot is place on the inside of the leg much higher up and is known as the dewclaw. This is used for extra grip when holding on to prey species.

Claws are among the most deadly weapons a lion possesses. A few of their uses are grabbing and holding prey, climbing and traction.

This image shows how Lion claws are sheathed. The distal phalanx pivots on the middle phalanx when the flexor tendon is contracted, this protractes and unsheathes the claw.

A common thought is that lion claws are retractable, this is in fact wrong they are protractible. Meaning that at rest the claws are sheathed, when the animal flexes certain muscles in the foot the claws are forced out. If they were retractable the lion would have to walk around tensing to keep his claws sheathed.

The main reason the claws are kept sheathed is to protect them form everyday wear and tear, keeping them sharp. If you look at a domestic dog’s claws which are non ‘retractable’ they are very blunt in comparison to a domestic cat’s claws.

Lions and other cats have to work on keeping their claws sharp and strong, you will often see domestic cats ‘pawing’ or ‘kneading’ objects such as your favorite couch. This behaviour is also necessary in lions, and you will often see them doing this against tree trunks. This is done for two reasons. Firstly to sharpen the claws, this is really more cleaning than sharpening, as the claws grow the keratin outer layer is shed and needs to be constantly removed from the claw. The second reason is to mark territory, lions have interdigital scent glands in between their toes. This means by stretching out the toes the scent is released onto whatever they happen to scratching this is usually done on a tree.

This little guy at only a few weeks old can still give you a very nasty scratch.

 Lion paws are essential to a lion and what they do, they have evolved specifically for this awesome apex predator. Without this specially designed equipment they would struggle to hunt and fit into their niche in nature.

Musth in Elephants

‘Musth’ is usually a fairly misunderstood concept, even by people who spend a lot of time in the bush. The basic principle is easy enough, but understanding the finer details is a lot more complex and confusing.

Musth (pronounced Must) is a period of time in which the male reproductive hormone testosterone is at its highest levels in the body. Levels of testosterone can be up to 60 times higher than normal. This increase of testosterone indicates that the individual is ready to mate. Frequency and length of musth can vary greatly and I will discuss factors effecting this later on.

Firstly I will go through how you can tell if an elephant is in musth.

This Old Bull is in Musth the signs you can see here are secretion from the temporal gland on the side of the head and urine leaking on the inside of the back legs. This Elephant has been wallowing so his back legs are wet anyway and it's quite hard to see the urine.

The Photograph on the left shows an Elephant in Musth. A dark line down the side of the face, this is the first sign to look out for. This is created by the secretion of Temporin from the Temporal Glands on the side of the head. This secretion is not unique to musth bulls and can be seen on females as well as youngsters, indicating a rise in adrenalin from the animals either being excited, nervous or angry.

The Second sign to look for is on the back legs. Urine is constantly dribbled down the insides of the legs, staining them much darker than the rest of the body. This is unique to musth and emits an unmistakable odour, a sort of sharp bitter smell that is the biggest give away of a bull in musth. Humans can pick it up over a few hundred meters. 

Musth is directly influenced by the physical condition of the individual. Bulls in peak physical condition have more regular cycles which will last longer.  These bulls can be in musth any where up to a few months, and you will often find they will enter musth around about he same time every year. Whereas younger more submissive bulls will go into musth only for short periods at a time . They won’t reach the same hormone levels as the older bulls. 

Musth lengths are again effected by physical condition, if the bull can stay at his peak while in musth he will stay in musth for as long as he can sustain his condition. Bulls often lose condition while they are in musth because they can travel huge distances in search of receptive females, and they are often too preoccupied to feed and drink properly.

Two Bulls Fighting. The dominance hierarchy of bull elephants is often settled by fighting, which is really just to gauge each others strength and size rather than to hurt or injure each other. Saying that serious fights can break out and elephants are occasionally found dead with tusk wounds to the body.

Even though an elephant can enter musth as soon as he reaches sexual maturity which is usually around about 16 for males and a bit earlier for females. This doesn’t mean they will be allowed to mate as the older bulls even if not in musth will assert their dominance over them and they will then come out of musth. They will then go back to being submissive.

Musth bulls are usually thought of as very aggressive and unpredictable. This in some ways is true but it does also depends on the individual elephant. Younger bulls are much more unpredictable. All musth bulls deserve a wide berth and are not worth pushing your luck with as you are very likely to come out second best.

www.danielpeel-photography.com

Elephant Communication

Big Tuskers are now few and far between but to be able to photograph and spend time with such a gently magnificent beast is something you treasure forever.

To the casual observer elephants are largely silent animals, except for the occasional trumpet or squeal, made to show alarm or aggression. This magnificent animal comes across as silent because most of their ‘language’ is infrasound, meaning it is below the human hearing range. Humans can hear as low as 20hertz. Most of elephant communication is done between 4 and 20hertz. The occasional ‘tummy rumble’ can be heard by humans and this in effect is the highest pitch in elephant communication. 

These ‘Tummy Rumbles’ are not tummy rumbles at all they are made at the base of the trunk. Basically where the trunk enters the skull, what we would call the nose cavity. If you are ever lucky enough to be close to an elephant while they are communicating, you will notice that the base of the trunk vibrates and you ’see’ the noise without hearing it. Noise is basically vibrations that have been interpreted by our ears and all make sense in our head but travelling through air are just vibrating particles.

This infrasound communication is thought to be amplified by the huge honeycomb structured skull. The skull is honeycomb for two reasons, firstly and probably most importantly to make it light enough to carry around. If an elephant skull was made of solid bone being the size it is, it would easily be a few 100 kilograms, this would be very impractical even for the largest land mammal. The Second reason is to ampify this ’silent’ communication, even though humans can’t hear it these rumbles can be heard by other elephants as far as 4 or 5 kilometers (2 to 3 miles) away.

These ‘tummy rumbles’ can be heard 4 to 5 kilometers away as airborne communication. But that’s not the only way elephant send and receive. These vibrations can travel a lot further in a harder substrate such as soil. These siesmic waves can travel as far as 20 kilometers (12 miles) under ground.

Most of elephant communication, is made at the base of the trunk. What would look like the forehead, this means the vibrations can be amplified by the honeycomb structure of the skull. Other sounds made by elephants include trumpeting and squealing, this is done by expelling air rapidly through the trunk.

It is very interesting how elephants pick up these under ground vibrations. There are two basic methods that we know of, the first one is through bone conduction. This is when vibrations in the soil are transferred into the tips of the elephant’s toe bones and then up the leg and so on into the middle ear where the vibrations are read and translated into messages in the brain. The other method is through ‘Somatosensory Reception’ this involves vibration sensitive cells in the feet and tip of the trunk that pick up vibrations which then travel to the brain via the nerves system. This method of ‘hearing’  results in the ‘receiving stance’ as I like to call it. Often out in the bush when you are watching elephant they suddenly, without warning all freeze, motionless for sometimes minutes at a time. If you didn’t now about this seismic communication you would think that time had stopped, not a sound and the whole herd unbelievably still even the young ones seem to pick on this and listen in. Even though you can’t tell for sure you can imagine these beautiful creatures talking to herds on the other side of the reserve, it’s an unbelievable though that there is a whole conversation going on without you hearing a thing.

As far as we know there are also different calls and messages sent, these may include warnings rumbles, aggressive rumbles, rumbles made by females in estrus, rumbles made by bulls in musth, and probably many many more that humans can’t even start to imagine.

These are unbelievable animals, and we have only scratched the surface of their world. People often think and relate to animals in a human way of thinking, the truth is that compared to animals our own senses are far inferior. Huge respect has to be given to the creatures of earth-

There is still so much we don’t know!

Amazing studies have been done by Caitlin O’Connell-Rodwell, in places like Etosha, to find out more about elephant communication-

Read her book- The Elephant’s Secret Sense: The Hidden Life of the Wild Herds of Africa.

Elephants are usually peaceful animals, this young female was a little bit wary of me being so close. She was pretending to feed while keeping an eye on me just to make sure I was not a threat to her.

Victoria Falls Anti-poaching Unit

Victoria Falls is designated as a World Heritage Site. It is surrounded by the 2 340 ha Victoria Falls National Park and the Zambezi National Park, which is 57 000 ha. This area is home to a diverse and amazing amount of wildlife as well as breath taking scenery, along the beautiful Zambezi river. Unfortunately this area has seen a huge amount of illegal poaching in the last few years. This is both animal poaching and wood poaching.

The animal meat trade is growing in Zimbabwe, animals such duiker, warthog, impala, kudu, wildebeest and even buffalo are among a few of the species hardest hit.
Most of this poaching is done through snares or wire traps, used to suffocate and starve animals to death. Unfortunately snares are not species specific and will trap any animal that is unlucky enough to walk by. Other animals such as wild dogs, leopard, lion are often injured and even killed by snares. The larger animals are strong enough to break the anchor of the snare, and bits of wire are often left caught around their legs or neck and they slowly starve to death.

Wood poaching sounds like a strange concept but it is a big problem in the Vic Falls area. As the area’s main income is tourism, hardwood is collected by the locals, it is then carved and crafted into souvenirs that are sold to tourist to Vic Falls. Many indigenous trees are being felled to fuel this industry, these trees include the African Ebony with its beautiful dark brown heartwood, the Pod Mahogany with its red-brown heartwood and the Mukwa with its stunning light brown heartwood.

The unit was established in 1999, by professional guide and safari operator Charles Brightman, and the Victoria Falls Safari Lodge.  
VFAPU work closely with the National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority and the Zimbabwe Republic Police, the anti-poaching unit patrol roughly a 50 square kilometer around the victoria Falls area.
The main focus of the VFAPU is the removal of wire snares and the apprehension of poachers. A lot of time and energy is also spent on educating the local population on the benefits of conservation, and the effects on natural resources. With the understanding that many people have been driven to poaching by the economic hardships of Zimbabwe, and that is why the VFAPU has been working on job creation and economic development to try and rehabilitate offenders rather than taking a purely punitive stance   

The unit relies solely on private funding from donors and sponsors. It receives no funding from the government. The long term goal is to receive international funding so they can expand their area of operation, but right now the operation is extremely short of funds. 
Please if you feel like making a donation of any size contact Charles at the address below or contact me and we will assist in getting you in touch with the right people.

Successes to date include the recovery of 19300 wire snares and the arrest of 400 poachers.

Victoria Falls Anti Poaching Unit (VFAPU)
PO Box CT 544
Victoria Falls
Zimbabwe
Tel/Fax: +263 13 45821
Cell No: +263 11209144
Email: cat@yoafrica.com
Website: http://www.vfapu.org/index.html

Wildlife Photography Equipment

Wildlife Photography Equipment

Choosing the right wildlife photography equipment can be a long and time consuming job, scrolling through reviews and comments about each camera and each lens available on the market.
I use a Canon 40D body, with my main lens the Canon 100-400mm F/5.6, I also have the Canon 17-55mm lens as well as my more basic and general use lens a Tamron 55-200mm.

In my personal experience there are three major functions a wildlife camera and lens need: 

1. Aperture- or F-stop is one of the most important things about a lens, it indirectly effects almost everything about photography.
   The lower the number e.g. F/2.8 the better, this often comes at a great price though, generally the fixed telephoto lenses have the lower F-stops.
   The lower the number the wider the aperture, this means that more light can be let into the lens and therefore the shutter speed can be quicker without effect the light let into the lens. This helps to reduce camera shake causing blurry photos, it also helps when shooting in low light conditions.
   Camera Shake is also a big thing in wildlife photography, it very often ruins a great photographic opportunity. That’s why something to steady your camera and lens is often a huge help in the field, these could come in the form of a tripod or monopod. Both good options, but as I know from being a guide and a photographer, those options don’t work in a vehicle (on game drives), and only really show their true potential if you have space and time to set up your shot e.g. Landscape photos. What I would recommend is a sand bag or something of that nature to rest the lens on. This is a photo saver and is definitely worth the investment. Or otherwise a home-made rest will do the job just as well, e.g. bag of rice.
2. Zoom- Personally  I think another important function is the zoom of a lens.
   Especially when shooting wild animals, you can’t always get up close and personal, because one of two things will happen. You chase the animal or the animal chases you. Which ever way your close encounter turns out its very hard to get up close without disturbing the animals. That is why I use a 400mm lens, and I would say a 400mm zoom is the minimum needed if you are serious about getting the great shots.
3. Speed- This is very important and this heading encompasses quite a few things.

Firstly and most importantly the speed of you. I feel it is very important for you to know your way around your camera and lens. No matter if your equipment is top of the range, best that money can buy, or point and click stuff, the animals won’t wait around for you to turn on and set up, I have found animals can be very inconsiderate when it comes to that sort of thing. If you know your way around the camera you are much more likely to actually be ready for the once in life time opportunity when it does come around.
Secondly, speed of the lens.  By this I mean the speed of the focus on the lens. For example my Canon 100-400mm lens has focusing ranges, so if the object you are trying to focus on is less than 6.5m you can flip a switch on the actual lens and narrow down and cut out what I call focus searching, where the lens searches for something to focus on, this often happens when trying to focus through branches or grass.
Thirdly, speed of the camera. How many photos per second your camera can take. This helps when trying to photograph animals running. This is not as important as the first two, but still important to consider. 

There is obviously much much more to photography, but these are the three basic things I think about when wildlife photography is conserned.

See examples of Wildlife Photography taken with this equipment at:-

www.danielpeel-phototgraphy.com

Lion Trespassers

There has been a lot of lion activity in the area over the last few days, as the big buffalo herds are still around. Our first sighting was in the morning, Tyson our big male storming through the area calling to the others, who were unfortunately off our property. And that is exactly where he went, leaving us at the boundary staring after him. That same morning about half an hour after the Tyson sighting we found a lone female following a herd of buffalo, I assumed there were more around moving silently after the buffalo as a lone hunt on buffalo is almost impossible. We kept our distance just keeping an eye on her without disturbing her or chasing the buffalo she was stalking. The buffalo were heading to a waterhole, moving slowly and feeding at the same time. Suddenly she sees her opportunity and springs into action focusing on a sub-adult buffalo. As she jumps up the buffalo see her and take off as well, the female knowing that she has lost the element of surprise gives up the chase after about 20metres  and goes back to lie on the edge of the waterhole, with no other females in sight.
That afternoon one of the other vehicles finds a pride of lions on a buffalo kill. Which is very cool in itself but the exciting thing is it’s not the Ross pride, our resident and dominant pride, but its on their territory. The pride consists of one big male and eight or nine females that we could see and four young cubs. We stay and watch the feast into the darkness, finally heading back to the lodge for dinner. On the way back another surprise. More lions this time it was the Ross pride. Switching off and scanning around, there is Tyson and six of the females. As we were watching, with the females no more than 20metres in front, start roaring! The most powerful and awe-inspiring noise in the african bush, the power of the whole pride roaring together was vibrating the panels of the vehicle and making us feel very small and helpless amongst these amazing predators. We sat with them and watched them interact as they woke up got ready for the evenings activities, reluctantly we headed back to the lodge only an hour late for dinner.
Over dinner I explained to the guest that the first pride was trespassing and if our pride found out about this be big problems.
The next morning we headed out early, starting off on the drive before it got light. We decided to head back to where we last saw the Ross Pride. They had moved, which I expected, we carried on to the site of the buffalo kill. As we pulled up, I was surprised to see that it was still the trespassing pride on the kill. We switched off and watched one of the females as she half heartedly chewed on the carcass, the others lay lethargicly round the buffalo. One of the other females looked up and I suddenly recognised her. She was a very pale female with her left ear placed very low on her head, making her look lopsided the whole time. She was one of the members of the old Ross Pride. which used to consist of twenty-two females and three young males. Then Fabio and Mike (the current dominant males) took over the pride and twelve females left the area with their cubs and nine stayed. This was part of the old pride and that could be part of the reason this pride were still here, they were all related and old pride members. The two prides won’t share the territories but will be tolerant with the other pride being in their territory. Seeing these old pride members again after such a long time was great and all in all a very good few days regarding the lions.

Rhino Courtship

Early into one of our afternoon game drives, as we drove passed one of the few waterholes left at this time of year. I hear over the radio that one of the other vehicles out has found three white rhino, one big male and a female with her calf. The area the rhino were in was very close to where we were, just on the other side of the dry river bed. But to get there by vehicle we would have to head south parelel with the river bed and cross at the next crossing point and then head back up north to where the rhino were. This drive probably took us just under ten minutes and we arrived just in time to see the rhino cross the dry river bed back to where we had just come from.
We raced back around to find the rhinos standing in the tree line about fifty meters from the water hole, I decided to park by the water and wait for the rhino to move out of the trees and towards the water. The other two vehicles in the sighting moved around to get a better view of the rhino in the bushes.
As we sat there only able to see the outline of the animals, every now and then catching glimpes of an ear or a tail through the bushes. We started hearing a strange whining sound, it was the bull, then snorting and heavy breathing, the female. I quickly explained what the sounds meant. And one of the guest somed it up for us;
“so he wants to mate with her, but she won’t do it while her son is watching?!”
The calf was about five or six years old and was ready to leave his mum and go make a life on his own. The female had obviously come into heat and caught the attention of the bull. The bull seeing his predicament (as the guest explained earlier) was trying to chase the youngster away from his mother so they could have a little privacy. The bull had probably been trying for quite a while before we arrived as the youngster and the mother were both very aggetated.
Female rhino are very good mothers and will try defend their calf from anything, in this case it was another rhino, not trying to hurt him just trying to chase him off.
The sound we were hearing was the male approaching and the female chasing him away.
They moved out of the tree line into the open, still huffing and puffing at each other, and slowly made their way toward the waterhole that we were sitting at. The youngster came first almost tripping over a log to get away from the male he ran to the other side of the water passed the vehicle. The female followed stopping only to make sure what the vehicle was and then trotted off after her youngster. The male followed obiviously getting frustrated stopped no more than ten meters from the vehicle still huffing and puffing, this time at us! We sat there waiting for his next move which only came after a very very long two minute stare down. He decided that he would rather spend his energy running after the female than taking his anger out on us, which was a good thing for us. After they had moved off we sat for a while just thinking about the amazing experience that we had just had.

Buffalo Kill

The Ross Pride were back in force on Friday night.
Over the last week or so there has been a huge amount of buffalo activity on Africa on Foot’s property. With three major herds moving in and out the area, one of them being estimated at over 1000 animals.
With all these buffalo in the area the lions were sure to show up and try their luck for their favourite prey species. Five days we waited for the big cats to show, we were really struggling to find the cats and our guests were going home without out seeing them.
Friday night started off like the previous five days had been, lots of buffalo, and a small herd of elephant.
As we started heading back to camp we passed a waterhole with yet more buffalo drinking, only stopping briefly we pushed on back to camp. Just five minutes out of camp, Richard the other Africa on Foot guide comes on to the radio
“I’ve got Ngala trying to bamba Nyari”, “Lion hunting Buffalo!” was the call.
I slam on brakes and headed the vehicle back in the direction of the pan we just came from not even five minutes ago. I get the details from Richard as we speed off getting cameras ready.
There’s two lioness targeting a small group of buffalos, chasing them north through the drainage line. We swing round heading north parallel with the northern bank, slowing down now scanning the bush on our right. Suddenly 25meters in front of us three buffalo burst out the bush, bound across the road and disappear into the bush on the other side, switching off I scan back to the right waiting for a glimpse off the one thing three bull buffalo would run from- Lion!
In the silence we wait hearing the buffalo crashing through the bush on our right, but nothing else. We wait a while longer.
The the radio breaks the silence. The females are back on the southern side of the drainage line, obviously abandoning the chase and heading back to the main herd of buffalo. We race round, by this time the other game drives have arrived and there are four vehicles helping with the search. As soon as we get to the other side we catch a glimpse of the cats, one female. Shes calling, a low contact call, looking for the other female, probably split in the chase and trying to re-group to plan another attack.
Suddenly out of the darkness appear two more females and Tyson, one of the prides dominant males. They greet each other quickly rubbing faces and necks and then moving off in different directions. Two females and the male moving to the water for a drink and the other females moving west into the bush. The other vehicles follow the group to the water and we follow the two into the bush, they’re walking with purpose. Stopping every now and then to listen and stare off into the darkness. They stop, then flop down, suddenly not interested in whats going on around them. Again out of the darkness two more females, also not that interested in the happenings around them. Rubbing faces and flopping down on top of each other. Feeling slightly disappointed we watch the females sleeping.
Four females here, two females and a male at the water. I realise that there is another male and three females missing.
Suddenly another call over the radio- they’ve found the rest of the pride and they’ve made a kill! The females lying next to the vehicle suddenly seemed boring and we rushed off to where the real action was happening! Arriving minutes later, the kill was so fresh that lions, still trying to catch their breath, had hardly started eating.
As we sat there lion showed up out of nowhere untill the whole pride was at the feast including the young ten month old male. No other cubs were there.
The Thirteen lions fighting over the best bits of the buffalo, with low powerful growls, every so often exchanging blows. The males dominating the carcass, eating their full on the prized cut of buffalo beef as the females patiently chewed on the harder and less appetising portions waiting for the males to eat their full and retreat, flopping over near the kill site unable to eat another mouthful.
We stayed at the kill for another forty minutes or so, and in that time a considerable portion of the buffalo had been demolished. In the morning we went back to the carcass and very little of the buffalo remained, only the harder and tougher cut, that would be chewed on during the rest of the day.
The pride are back…

The Ross Pride- on a buffalo Kill