Kings Camp recently experienced a phenomenal month of lion sightings:
Let us start with the high activity of nomad males that are moving into the area from all four corners of the wild African bush.
We received an early call one morning to two male lions killing a buffalo. (Just the call needed to start a chilly morning!) We arrived on scene just after the lions managed to kill the buffalo. It was clear that these “intruders “ knew exactly what they were doing, but seemed a bit nervous. It was not the vehicle presence that worried them. They noticed some other males in the surrounds and it was proven by that afternoon when they were chased off by two other males. The following morning, however, things changed again as we saw that the Machaton pride had joined up longing for a piece of prime cut. The two nomads however did not allow the lionesses and young ones to feed off the kill.
The Machaton Pride eventually gave up and started following the noise of a buffalo heard near to camp. I located the lionesses on the next morning drive busy following the group of bovines very intently. The hunt carried on during the whole day and they managed to kill a female buffalo at about 21h00 that night. (We heard the bellowing from the camp.) On morning drive we followed up and found that the pride was already chased off by the same two nomads that stole the previous kill!!!! (It once again proves how opportunistic predators are!)
Not even more than two weeks later we had action again from all of the above mentioned lions and the Voëldam lionesses (they have cubs now; I am not sure how many though. The action around the kill was quite rough at some stages and the young ones were well hidden most of the time.) from Klaserie.
I walked to my house after hosting dinner one night and heard the typical death bellowing sound from a buffalo. Without thinking twice about it I rushed to the Land Rover to secure the sighting for the next morning. After about 40 minutes of searching, and one very nice leopard sighting, I stumbled across the carcass of a female buffalo next to the road with about 11 hyenas feeding. Quite odd I thought, but soon one of those nomads rushed out of the bush and chased them off. Baffled as to where the other nomad is I heard chewing from deeper into the bush! Another female buffalo carcass!!! The Machaton pride was feeding on this one, at least enough for them, and the nomads could feed off their own carcass.
I raced back to camp and woke my group of guests up at midnight. They had a wish to see lions on a fresh kill, and they were on the vehicle in a flash to see the action. The next morning and the two days to follow had a lot of changeovers between different groups of lions feeding. It happened on the Klaserie border, the territory line of the two prides. Luckily our Machaton pride stood their ground and finished the kill that belonged to them.We won’t forget to mention the ever present Sohobele pride and male. They are also doing extremely well and we have seen them on a few impala and waterbuck kills this month. The six cubs have been in very good shape so far this whole month!!!