Lots of lions in the area, including a female with three small cubs, a pride of five lionesses, and three different males. Unfortunately one of the small cubs was lost mid way through the month, and lioness was seen with only two for the rest of the month.
For July, the wild dogs did well with their 8 puppies. Early on in August, they decided that their puppies were old enough to leave the den, and begin to move with the pack. Although the puppies are still little, and can’t run the distance and speed that the adults can, the pack will move them from spot to spot, with a caretaker, and do their hunts from there. Around the 14th of the month, they moved into an area where the large buffalo herds hang out, and lions are commonly seen. It’s unlikely that would choose to stay in that area for very long. By the end of the month, the puppies were growing up nicely, and all eight of them were trying to keep up with the 17 adults as much as possible.
One of the leopardesses that we haven’t seen for a while has moved back into the area again. She looks in good condition, and she had caught a jackal when we found her.
In order to differentiate between animals, regularly seen individuals are often given names. So then it comes down to the challenge of what to name them? Typically, if there is a pack or a pride, you try and have names with the group that are associated (eg members of a well-known football team, chiefs or kings and queens, even varieties of wines!) For solitary individuals, such as territorial male lions, it’s less necessary to have a name that is associated with a group, and one can select a more individual name, perhaps from a characteristic or story about that individual. Guests at Lebala were slightly alarmed to hear one very large male lion being referred to as “Drop the Pilot”. Sounding rather like an incident of lion training gone horribly wrong, an inquiry was made… Was a pilot perhaps taken to the wrong end of the airstrip and left there to meet this lion? Apparently not. This lion has a very tall mane, one side of which stands straight up, then flops down over his eye. This particular hairstyle is currently very popular with the ladies of Botswana, and is called “Drop the Pilot” (for some completely unknown reason….). And this is how the lion acquired the name…
Drop the Pilot and his buddy, Sebastian (not sure about that one either…), were seen often through the month, but were not involved in a great buffalo hunt which occurred on the 26th. Four lionesses, with two 2 month old cubs safely stashed away, spent the day hovering around a herd of buffalo – over 1000 of them. By late afternoon, the herd was very antsy, and the lionesses tried to fragment them. Initially facing five big male buffalos, the males turned and ran. One lioness pulled away from the three, and began harassing a mother and calf. She grabbed the calf and pulled it down, with the mother buffalo continuing to try and attack her. Realising that she was in jeopardy from the attacking buffalo, the lioness grabbed the calf in her mouth, lifted all four of its feet in the air, and ran off.
Soon after that, the lionesses regrouped and spooked the herd enough that it again fragmented, this time pulling down a larger sub-adult buffalo that had no chance of defending itself from the combined attack. The next day, having feasted on the buffalo during the night, they were found together with their cubs, resting up from the busy night.
