Lion kill

Zimbabwe has been suffering shortages of diesel and petrol since November last year. For some time we were able to keep operating simply by being very careful with our fuel use and not going to far-away places like Inyantue unless we absolutely had to. We managed to get occasional supplies of diesel but by January we were so short that we had to ‘ground’ one of our three vehicles. Through  February we kept two vehicles going when necessary but our fuel stocks dwindled and early in March we decided that only the vehicle for the Rhino monitoring Unit would be in action, the others (with those of us that drive them) would be grounded. That has meant that since some time in January, I have hardly left Camp, indeed, Sue and I have only been away from the Park for one day since Christmas, and very frustrating it has been too. I hate having nothing to do so I’ve tried to keep busy, though some jobs are too horrible even to think about, however bored I might be – tidying the office is one that springs to mind. I just can’t face those tottering piles of paper that have been kept for long-forgotten reasons and then left to gather dust.

   I have to say that if you are going to do nothing, Sinamatella is not a bad place to do it. Sue wakes early every day to go for her morning walk so we usually see the sun rise……….

   Through the day the local birds and animals provide a lot of entertainment. December and January are months when many of the birds are hungry and have learnt to come and beg from us or just to join us on the veranda to get out of the rain……….

    Now that the grass has seeded there is plenty of food for the birds so we don’t see them as much but still the various mammals such as the Dwarf Mongoose, squirrels and Dassies are around…..

       

And the view down to the flood plain is endlessly changing, especially on the rare occasions this year that we have had rain…….

   I have not (by any means) been doing nothing for all these weeks. Our extensive range of Land Rovers always provides work – and here I should say the following photo is strictly copyrighted to avoid it turning up on some Land Cruiser-chauvinist website!

    Not having been out into the Park, I haven’t had much to write about but yesterday Sue was going through photos on the computer and deleting the unwanted ones when she found the series that goes with this story from last year……

    It was October, water in short supply, herbivores struggling for decent food and carnivores and scavengers fat and smiling. We were approaching the Sinamatella River Bridge when  we saw a group of giraffe gathered in the shade of a big tree. One of our on-going projects is a survey of the giraffe population so we stopped to get the necessary photographs. As we sat looking at the giraffe we saw two lionesses who stood up from the vegetation in the river bed . One headed off to our right and the other headed towards the water in a pool by the bridge……

   We were slightly higher up than she was so we could see that a group of Impala had the same idea and were also heading for the pool from the opposite direction………

   When she saw them, the lioness started a fast stalk……….

    The Impala seemed not to have noticed her and continued to come down to the river……..

Until she began her charge………..

   The action now took place, somewhat obscured by dust and at great speed so we couldn’t easily follow what happened but Sue kept her finger on the camera’s shutter button and later we could see from the photos that the lioness very nearly caught one of the Impala that had been closest to her……..

   But then she veered off to the left ……….

    And we lost our view of her for a few moments until I had moved the car forward slightly. Then we saw that she had successfully made her kill…….

   Which she dragged out of the river bed and into the shade of a Croton bush to eat……..

   We had only seen two lionesses but there were very likely some young lions around as well so the Impala won’t have made much of a meal for them but at that time of the year, the hunting is relatively good and I have no doubt the lions hunted successfully again not long afterwards. At this time of year, with leaves on the trees and water available in many, widely-spread places, the tables are turned and the herbivores are at an advantage.  Life’s always tough for someone or something though  – as, of course, those of us that live in Zimbabwe are only too aware!