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Playful lion cubs of the Moporota Pride (Mombo Camp, Okavango Delta) 07th Sep 2009

A few days ago I decided to join guide Simon Byron on a morning drive at Mombo. True to form, it was a productive morning and we moved from one sighting to the next as we made our way around the concession. There was very little time when we were not confronted by some or other large mammal or spectacular scene and we saw plenty of buffalo, zebra, wildebeest, lechwe, giraffe and tsessebe as well as lion.

Perhaps my favourite sighting was of the Moporota Pride with a zebra and wildebeest carcass at the Letlaka Hippo Pool floodplains.

By the time we arrived at the sighting, the lions (having killed the two animals in the early hours of the morning) had already mostly eaten their fill. The zebra carcass was largely finished and most of the adult members of the pride lay around with full, swollen bellies. The wildebeest had barely been touched though and this gave the cubs an excellent opportunity to trial all sorts of new skills.

As they climbed and jumped all over the carcass, some of the cubs instinctively practised a suffocating bite to the muzzle and throat, while others ambushed each other using the carcass as cover. Growing tired of the inanimate object some of the cubs later turned their attentions to one of the adult males while a side-striped jackal looked on. Even the jackal was not spared the curiosity of the cubs and it suffered the indignity of being charged by the youngsters on several occasions.

Multi-predator Feeding Frenzy at Mombo (Okavango Delta, Botswana) 13th Jan 2010

We had an unbelievable day recently when the Moporota sub-adult lions decided to attack a buffalo in front of Little Mombo Camp Room 1 and Mombo Camp Room 9.

As the lions took down one of the buffalo, the entire breeding herd turned back and charged at the lions. One of the lions was tossed into the air by the buffalo and in all the chaos the buffalo that had been attacked initially managed to escape. Other lion pride members used this pandemonium however to their benefit and brought down another buffalo - this time inflicting fatal wounds on its hind legs that it could not walk properly any more. The remainder of the buffalo herd kept charging the lions. The lions now took time to revise their tactics though and just kept a safe distance, waiting for the herd to leave the scene. Once they had left, the lions came in for the final kill, claiming their bovine victim.

These lions kept feeding until late in the evening. The noisy arrival of spotted hyaenas at the kill however eventually attracted a different pride of lion with big males (Moporota and the Jao Boys). The sub-adults, realising that they did not stand a chance, upped and fled. The hyaenas also concluded they were no match for the adult males and ran, and we thought it was all over for the night. We were wrong; suddenly a huge three-metre Nile crocodile arrived and started feeding on the carcass! The lions were not happy with the arrival of this prehistoric predator and charged at it. The crocodile fought back and the lions eventually gave up keeping all the meat to themselves, so that we had the incredible sight of lions and crocodile feeding together.

The hyaenas finally got access to the last remains in the early hours of the next morning - breaking bones and feeding on the sinewy bits. By the time the sun was up, all that was left was a few scattered bones and squabbling vultures clearing up the last bits from this feeding frenzy.