It was like déjà vu all over again this morning (1st June) as we found the pride at water pan 3 once more, on a very chilly, overcast and windy day.
Despite the cool weather, the lions’ large bellies meant that they were – to start with – in very sedate form. However all this changed a short time later and it was all due to a little bit of water.
The three pans in the site, when not filled up by rain, are filled regularly remotely to keep them topped up by Dambwa staff. Despite there already being water in pan 3 it did need a bit of a refill and as the tap outside the site was turned on, and the water began pouring in everyone scrambled to their feet (except Temi) and plunged their snouts into the fresh water as if they’d been waiting there all night for this very event.
There was even a bit of a scrap between Leya and Kela as they jostled for position around the pan to be the closet to the running water. Once they’d all had their fill and settled back down a relative sense of calm descended back over the group interspersed with bouts of allo-grooming and popping 20 metres away for a bathroom break.
Kwandi & Loma
The cool weather carried on into the mid-morning session. Returning to pan 3 we found everyone sleeping except Zulu who you may be aware by now has a bit of a thing for bird watching. What started out a few months ago as a quirky trait has now developed into a full-blown obsession. For the first 40 minutes his eyes relentlessly scanned the skies, and when he spotted our resident bateleur eagles carrying out their daily inspection he actually got up and followed them for 20 metres or so.
Luckily for these two he stood no chance of catching them, but it appears another bird may not have been quite so lucky. Just the other side of the waterpan about 30 metres from where the lions were resting was a dark patch of earth under a shabby-looking tree with feathers scattered around the spot. While we can only hazard a guess as to who’s responsible for this, the feathers indicate someone’s been snacking on a kori bustard.