Rested and Ready

After a good nights rest and some fantastic new guests we got ready to head out on our first safari. It was a spectacular morning with the first real blue skies in a week and a promise from the weatherman that temperatures would soar to 35 degrees. 

The first real bit of action that we got were tracks for a small pride of lions heading straight down into the river bed. After a quick scout on the other side of the river to see if they had crossed out, Solly and I headed in, to see if we could find them. The bush was ridiculously thick and we headed round to another side to enter where we had a bit of better visibility,. Once we got down into the river we walked a few metres, then heard a few branches cracking and noticed that the four lions had fled out of the river bed and were now all around us... Without hesitation I cocked the rifle and was now ready for any eventuality. Solly and I slowly started backing up down the river as the lions eyes were firmly fixed on us with their tails twitching in irritation. We made it back up to vehicle in one piece and with a bit of adrenalin pumping but unfortunately there was no way into the bush to see the lions. The only thing we could so was come back in the afternoon when they start moving again. 

The rest of the drive was enjoyable as we watched a small herd of elephants with a week old calf moving from marula tree to marula tree enjoying the new bounty of fruit that have begun falling. We then found a crash of rhino lying in the shade of a big tree and watched as they continued to sleep as if we were not even there.

We were fortunate in the afternoon, as the lions had decided to come out onto an open area and continue their rest there. This meant ample chance to watch four of our adolescent pride just lounging before the evening hunt. The one young male is just starting to come into puberty and was practising mating with the female...unfortunately for him this only led to her yawning...below you can see how much she cared for his actions.

By far the highlight of the day was finding a Verreaux's eagle owl that had just caught an african barred owlet. The owlet, full grown, was still kicking and squealing and we watched as the larger owl killed it and then flew off with dinner... 

It amazes me how out here, nothing can be taken for granted nor can anything be predicted... 

On the way back to the lodge we watched as the full moon rose over the bush and also got to witness a bark spider building his web for the evening.