A few days back, my guests and I set out on our morning safari. We had seen some incredibly lucky sightings the day before, being treated to a leopard feeding on an impala, as well as an awesome sighting of the elephants, with the youngsters all playing near our vehicle in the road. We set out this morning, trying to track down the remaining members of the Big 5, focusing on following the tracks of the lion pride. We eventually found our way onto some very fresh tracks of the lions, and together with a couple other vehicles started trying to pinpoint them down. After about 15 minutes, one of the other vehicles helping us managed to locate them in a nice open area not too far away. When we got there, we couldn’t believe how lucky we were! Instead of seeing the lions, all we could see as we were making our way closer was a female rhino and her young calf standing quite alert. When we got a bit closer, we could see all 12 lions sitting in a circle surrounding the rhinos! It was amazing to watch the interaction between these two species. The young cubs, thinking they were a lot bigger than they are, kept trying to push closer to the rhinos. Eventually after a lot of snarling, the mother rhino had had enough and gave chase to the lions. It was an amazing sighting to see, watching these usually fearless lions tuck tail and bolt in every direction!
Story by Kevin (River Lodge)
2013/09/10
