jgrussell – my world

The lioness kept the cubs at a substantial distance from the kill for a long time. Judging from the time stamps on my photos, it was six or seven minutes at a minimum. Then she slowly led them down to the kill.

First, the big male roared at them and scared them away. The lioness, who had gone into the shade, then went back, gathered the cubs up again and brought them back to the kill, around the back where the zebra’s hide was scored by the claws of the lion that brought it down. This time the male let them alone and they began to eat what they could.

Interestingly, the mother lioness did not try to eat at that point. Whatever the pecking order in the pride was, or perhaps to buy tolerance for the cubs, she went back and flopped down in the shade again, leaving the cubs to eat. The cubs were left unimpeded on the kill, climbing over and around it, tugging at the flesh and entrails. Even when the third lioness went to claim her share, though, the mother lioness stayed behind. She only went to eat after both other lionesses were finished.

Cubs begin to feed	cub feeding
second lioness feeds	mother feeds
cubs in body cavity	cub in body cavity

At one point, Grant told us to look up. We did, to see two eagles — a bateleur eagle and a tawny eagle — fighting with each other. The bateleur eagle was clutching the remains of a genet (a cat-like animal in the mongoose family), dangling its tail down where the tawny eagle was trying to grab it and take it away. The tawny did get a grip on the tail at one point, but the bateleur managed to get away with its prize.

Eagles fighting

Eagles and genet

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 14th, 2008 at 10:17 pm and is filed under 5. Botswana, Africa 2008. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.