Colette's Grand Detour

Day 12 (8th August 2025)

We got to see some really cool lion behaviour today.  It’s great to see the animals when they are resting as it gives you an opportunity to get really up close and grab some amazing pictures.  But it is even better when they are doing something and you can learn about their natural behaviour in the wild.  We had 3 really cool encounters today.

First up, we returned to the site of the elephant kill first thing this morning knowing that the lions would still be there.  And, oh my, the smell was getting much worse of the rotten elephant.  But the pride was there as we expected including an older male lion with a very dark mane.  We watched for a little while as they continued to work through the carcass.  Interestingly they have not yet eaten the intestines which were still bulging out of the opening in its gut, likely because the animal is so big that there is plenty of the good meat to go around and they will get to the intestines last. 

As we were watching we saw another lioness approaching, and assumed it was part of the pride and so welcome to join the feast.  And then suddenly all hell broke loose, with the adult lionesses of the pride suddenly exploding with loud roars and running towards the new arrival super aggressively.  Then the male lion joined in with roars and running towards her.  And we had a front row seat to the entire thing.  The chase sped away from the land cruisers and we started to follow as the pandemonium unfolded.  Eventually, 3 lionesses and the lion giving chase paused about 500 meters down the road as the unwanted guest sped away over the hill.  The growls and roaring continued but the pride headed back to the kill site.  Whilst they had been away the younger lions had hidden and a few opportunistic vultures had swooped down but were quickly shooed away by the returning lions.

Then we had the chance to discuss what we had witnessed.  So it turns out this lioness was not part of the pride at all and was taking her chances (likely driven by hunger) to join this pride and feast on the elephant.  But the pride had only noticed her when she was just a few meters from them.  The other aspect was that the male lion in the pride was probably interested in mating with her, adding a whole other dimension to why the lionesses were definitely not happy with the arrival of the unwanted guest.  Our guide said that what we had seen was really rare. 

Our second interesting encounter was tree-climbing lions.  We stumbled upon 2 trees nearby each other, one with 2 lions in and another with 1.  They were just relaxing and sleeping, knowing that no one would bother them up a tree.  This was interesting because there is a misconception that only some lions such as those in Lake Manyara National Park have adapted to climbing trees and it’s not a common behaviour.  Whereas actually, as our guide explained, all lions climb trees, and the misconception is because it was first recorded in certain parks and is not always seen on every game drive. 

Our final lion encounter of the day was a pride relaxing under a tree nearby where we had our picnic lunch.  We got to see some cubs suckling on a lioness as well as a cub trying to climb an incredibly steep tree that it was never going to be able to do at its current size.  But the cool bit was that we spotted 2 lionesses out in the grasslands behind the pride way off in the distance.  These guys were out looking for potential prey.  We initially spotted them and knew they were up to something so decided to stay and wait at this location.  But they quickly disappeared.  Eventually we decided we would move on, when they suddenly reappeared and we got to watch one of them slinking through the grass, crouched low down, hiding itself from any potential prey it might go after.  We thought it might be chasing something small as it slinked around quite a bit before stopping with no apparent kill. 

The 2 lionesses then changed tact and started looking at the impala that were to their right, but still quite far away.  One of them found a slightly raised area (likely a termite mound) to gain some elevation and scout out the options they might have for going after the impala.  From crouching down to standing, even so far in the distance you could see how big these animals are.  Eventually the lionesses sat down and relaxed, deciding that the impala were just too far away and they would need to wait to pounce when they were closer.   The wait could be hours and there was the potential we would eventually see nothing so we moved on, heading to a river that we knew would have a big pod of hippos that we could get close up too for some open jaw shots.