Sunrise my last day on safari.
This morning when I got up we had a giraffe and two waterbucks in the camp!
What an amazing final game ride I had. There was so much drama! Especially wonderful because I spent it with lions!
We first found a sleeping hyena.
Then far off in the distance we saw a lion sitting at the edge of some trees. As we got closer we saw that nearby was a cheetah eating her kill. The lion was one of the 2-year olds we have seen every day. The young male (aka boy 1) started walking slowly toward the cheetah. The cheetah saw him and watched. The lion kept walking. In the meantime two more 2-year olds, a male (aka boy 2) and a girl, came out of the trees. As the lion got closer, the cheetah grabbed a piece of her kill and took off. Boy 1 chased the cheetah who of course easily got away. While Boy 1 was chasing the cheetah, boy 2 picked up the kill (a full grown Thompson gazelle) and walked off with it. As he was walking the monkeys made a loud warning cry. Boy 2 jumped and dropped the kill. It was funny! These are the same boys who tried to be tough with the buffalo the other night.
Boy 2 picked up the kill, carried it away and started eating it. Boy 1 and the girl came over but to my surprise they did not try to get in on the action. I was expecting a fight over the food. We watched Boy 2 eat for awhile. Boy 1 eventually came over and laid down beside Boy 2, even rolling around.
Finally the fight I had been anticipating occurred. Boy 1 (who frankly had done the work of getting rid of the cheetah) tried to get some of the meat. Boy 2 growled and snarled at him. The girl came over, more growling. Boy 1 finally grabbed a leg of the gazelle. Boy 2 then laid down in top of the kill and hung on with his paws. Boy 1 kept trying to get a piece but Boy 2 was not letting go. He had his entire body weight on it.
Meanwhile the girl just calmly went to the other side , ignored the boys, and began eating what she could reach. The boys kept tussling. The girl kept eating.
Then an all out fight broke out between the two boys. It was violent and loud. The girl leaves out of the way. Boy 2 got a bad scratch on his nose and cheek. They ended up tearing the kill into parts and they each had something to eat.
All the racket brought mom up but when she got there everyone was eating in his/her own corner.
Then two jackals arrived. They kept trying to sneak in and get a piece of meat but the lions would not let them.
The girl and Boy 1 had less to eat so they finished and went over to mom. The jackals went for the scraps and so did an adult tawny eagle and two juveniles. Mom and the girl and Boy 1 left the area. We followed a bit to see where they were going. In the meantime we found the cheetah eating the scraps she got.
Finally Boy 2 who had eaten nearly the entire gazelle finished. When he left his kill the jackals and eagles swooped in for scraps.
Boy 2 saw the cheetah and chased her off again and ate her leftovers.
Then He started walking and he went the wrong way. He would stand still and do very soft roars. It was pitiful. They sound like cries. He would walked some more and then stop and softly roar. He was not going the right way and I was convinced he was lost.
We stayed with him. He by accident ran into a family of elephants. They trumpeted. He backed up and went another way. Finally going a roundabout way he found his family and was reunited. Now I could leave without worrying he was lost all alone.
I saw this same group of lions every day. I felt like I got to know them, especially the two silly boys. So although I saw far fewer different lions than I did in previous trips, it was special getting to know one part of a pride and learning their personalities. The girl I saw today was always with her brothers and there was always much head rubbing whenever she saw them.
On the way back to camp we saw our mom cheetah with the four cubs. The cubs were playing— wrestling and climbing a tree.
It was a great morning!
My new things today were seeing lions steal a cheetah’s food and two lions fighting over food in the wild ( I’ve seen it at the zoo but not in the wild ).
I got back to camp, ate breakfast and packed. Now I’m in a plane headed to Nairobi. I’ll change planes there for the beach.
I’m really quite sorry the safari is over.
This is the plane I’ve been flying in.
Here is the inside of the small plane.
Final count of individual animals :
- Lions: 34
- Males: 6
- Females: 11
- Subadults: 15
- Cubs: 2
- Leopards: 7
- Cubs: 1
- Cheetahs : 28
- Cubs: 10
Looking Out Seeing Within 