Early morning lion

Walking with eles

Vultures on the kill

Kavinga Safaris are happy to report that we are back from another great trip in the Zambezi Valley with a variety of great sightings.

Our first morning game drive, not 10 minutes out of camp, we bumped into this magnificent male lion. At first he was just lying in the open, thawing out after the cold winter's night, when he suddenly took notice of something to his left. From our position we assumed that breakfast had caught his eye but, with a little more investigation, we noticed another male lion in a stare out competition with the male in front of us. With cameras at the ready, we thought we would be witness to the awesome spectacle of 2 males fighting, instead the younger male behaved in a more submissive manner with both lions eventually disappearing into the bush.  What a start to our morning game drive!

Further on down the road, we stopped at a pan which was resident to a few hippo and, after a quick lesson on some of the tree species found along the waterways by our knowledgeable guide Steve, we were back on the track. 

We had heard that the wilddog sightings had been good near Long Pool and, after meeting a few people who confirmed they had just seen them, we decided to follow up. We found their spoor (tracks) but could not pinpoint their location and then we spotted the vultures rapidly descending, so we parked the vehicle and followed the vultures. Not too far in we saw a Spotted Hyena in a bush with a host of White Backed Vultures at his heels - the wilddogs had just killed an impala ram and we had missed it.  Still the excitement of walking in and finding the hyena and the carcass was enough. 

After a late breakfast and siesta back at camp, we decided to track the lions we had seen earlier that morning. At this time of year there are still many inland pans and walking alongside them we saw a variety of birds and game and fresh lion tracks. Our walk was interrupted by a herd of cow eles but, after changing our course to make way for the herd and their babies, we were surprised to hear them trumpet when the wind was in our favour.  A shout of "there!" and a very quick glimpse.  The eles had found the lions for us.  But, just like that, they were gone.

The sun was setting and it was time for sundowners back at the car while we watched the herd of eles in front of us, a fitting end to another great day in the African bush.  But that's not all, back at camp after a fine dinner, we were visited by another 2 lions.  We discovered in the morning that they had walked right up to the camp.  They are by nature extremely inquisitive so I am sure the odd noise from the camp was enough to stir their curiosity.

We were up early the next morning ready to investigate the night's mysteries and, with the lion roaring all night, we were not surprised to see their spoor all along the road. Not too far down the road, whilst attempting to photograph a bull ele feeding on the Acacias, an almighty roar erupted from behind us.  With a bit of high speed clambering on to the vehicle, we shot around to another road, parked and followed the sounds on foot into a thicket, where we came across a pride of lion that had just made a kill. With the ferocity of them on the kill, whatever had fallen victim was no more.  All we could find was blood spoor, so we assume it was something small - what an adrenalin rush!

Long Pool was the stage for another kind of feeding frenzy - a hippo had died and the vultures were there en masse.  We managed to position ourselves under a bush and had them landing right in front of us, so we got some great shots of them touching down. To top it all off, we did eventually see the wilddogs, unfortunately for Richard and Pat,  they had already left the camp, but it's something to look forward to on their next trip.  They did, however, manage to clock up about 80 bird species without too much effort, so well done  - it's certainly a figure to beat next time.