November 18 – lions and more lions
Our morning game drive was (almost) all about lion cubs. We did see a very young zebra early on so we stopped a few minutes, but the sun wasn’t really up yet, so it was challenging to take pictures. We continued on and found part of a large pride that had larger cubs. We stopped for a few seconds and then our guide took off again, we were all confused at first until he said that he probably knows where smaller cubs are. A few hundred meters away, we did indeed find cubs that were only a few months old. This pride has 35 adult lions and approximately 30 cubs! They don’t officially count lions as part of the pride until they are about a year old. The cubs were very playful, chasing each other, pawing, and pouncing.
After a while the lions went deeper into the bushes for a morning nap and we continued on. We stopped for breakfast and to our surprise, we had a full table set up with a grill cooking up bacon, eggs, sausages and more! There was even a portable tented bathroom.
After breakfast we headed back to camp for the heat of the day. Some of us had a lesson in Masai beading and made rings.
It feels silly, but animals like zebras, giraffes, wildebeest, topis, gazelles, and warthogs are starting to become boring unless they are in perfect golden light or there’s a baby or they are doing something fun, for the most part I’m not even photographing them anymore.
On our evening game drive we saw many of the species listed above. We also came across two crown crested cranes, which have pretty elaborate plumage on their heads. We also went back to the area the male leopard had been and we found him up the same tree, munching on what remained of the warthog he had up the tree. As we watched, he came down the tree and walked through the bush.
We continued on and saw some other vehicles parked in an open field. It was clear very quickly that they were watching a pride of lions hunt a herd of wildebeest. We parked and settled in to watch. Unfortunately, the hunt took a while and we ran out of light to photograph the lionesses.
On our way back to camp, our guide got very lost. There are multiple streams and gulleys that had to be crossed to get back to the main road. It was pitch black and after trying multiple times to find a crossing to a stream, our guide was finally successful and we were on our way back to camp.
Thanks for wandering with me,
Julie
J Cork Photography 