The wake-up knock came early today. I made sure I was up and ready to go which means I was up at 5:15. What happened to sleeping in on vacation right?
There was a nice spread for breakfast today, so I grabbed a
little bit to eat while waiting for everyone to show up. We loaded up in the jeep after that and hit
the trails at 6:00am. The sunrise was so
pretty this morning. We found a Giraffe at a watering hole to start the day off
and shot some really nice reflection photos of it as it drank. We then went off
in search of anything we could find, and as we drove along, admiring this great
rock face and how pretty it was in the morning light, we heard a lion calling
out from the trees at the base of the rocks.
It was a low call, and I wasn’t even sure that’s what I heard the first
time, but with the second call, the guide heard it as well and we turned off
the road and headed into the bush, finding a lone lioness sitting in the
morning sun, calling out to her cubs. The guide told us she had two cubs and
there was another female that would hang out with them. He thought maybe they
got separated during a hunt, or that this female woke up to find the other
three were gone and possibly hunting right at that moment. She called out for a while, before moving off
and listening for a response. At one point she just walked out to the road and
walked down the road calling out to them.
That’s when I learned it was very common for Lions and other animals to
use the jeep trails and roads for getting around as well.
We stayed with her for a while until we all decided we should
really leave her be and look for something else to photograph. I was just excited
that I had finally seen my first lion in the wild!
We found some more cool birds, Impala (yet again!), Giraffe
families, and then got a call over the radio of another lion pride further
north of us, that were all hanging out and sleeping near a watering hole. The guide asked if we would like to go, and
didn’t have to ask twice, and off we went.
We covered some distance to get here, and were happy to find the lions
were still there, but they were all still sleeping and being lazy. It was fun
to watch them, and even see them roll around, lay on their backs with paws in
the air, and doing things cats do. We
kept waiting for them to wake up but gave up after 20 minutes and thought we
could always come back if they started to hunt.
Our next fun encounter was with a large family of Elephants
all cooling off in a small pool. They were just drinking when we got there and
almost done … and soon walked out of the water and back out into the grasslands
to eat. We didn’t follow them, but it was great to get the first view of some
young elephants. It was time for a
morning coffee break, so the drivers all met up under a tree not too far from
the lions and we got out of the vehicles and stretched our legs, having a
morning snack and drinks. It felt a
little strange to be walking around with lions a couple of hundred yards
away. There were also Zebra close by,
and we figured they would keep an eye on the lions for us and would alert to
them, if they happened to get up and started moving around.
After our break we went back to check on the lions one more
time, before heading back to camp for lunch. It was a long drive back so we
just kept our eyes open for anything we might see along the way. The light was harsh now, so no good for
photos…. So, we just told the driver to keep going even though we saw a lot of
animals along the way back.
After lunch, it was time for a nice nap with the windows
open… so I set my alarm and took
advantage of the cool breeze and great bed.
At 3:00 we had afternoon tea and then hit the trails
again. One of the other jeeps had seen
an owl early that morning and their driver shared the location with mine. I told him I really like owls, so we went to
try to find it and it had moved when we got there. We figured it might not have gone too far,
and as we drove around, I spotted it sitting up in a tree, a short way from the
original spot. The guide heard the owl
call out at one point, and heard a reply from across the small riverbed, so we
moved on from this one to find the other owl, which turned out to be much
easier to spot.
A little later, we got a report of a leopard, and our guide
took off to go and try to find it for us. This day was turning out to be a great
one with both Lion and Leopard sightings on the same day!
When we finally got to where the leopard was, our guide
pointed out that it was up in a tree all sprawled out and resting. He also
spotted that there was a young cub under the tree with a kill, and that it was
eating at the time. The other jeeps that
were there never noticed it. He tried to
get us into a good position to take photos, but it was really tough with where
everything was under the tree. I think I might have still managed a couple of
environmental type shots though.
We stayed and watched the both for a while and then it
started to get dark and it was time to head back. It was a great day today!
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