Zimbabwe: A Walk in the Wild, Wild World/ Part 3

For all photos, click on them for full-size

The Melee (continued)

When we last left off, the lion pride had been charged by the alpha buffalo and forced to take refuge up against a termite mound that was attached to the base of a tree.

  Photo by Rob Janisch                                      

You may also recall the command from our guide, Andy : "Get up the tree, NOW!" Nancy was up in about 5 seconds (despite her lack of practice), me next, then Clea, and finally, Rob. All three guides were making sure we were as safe as possible. Andy stayed at the base of the tree with his shotgun ready, waving his free arm in the air and yelling at the approaching lions, "this is OUR tree!" 

The lions, in their urgency to flee the enraged buffalo herd, were looking for any cover they could find, including "our" mahogany. Andy's actions were meant to alter the lions' mental calculus: subtract this tree from your equation, oh kings and queens!  It wasn't immediately successful; some of them continued heading toward us, arcing to the right and left. Nance and I, crouching on outer reaches of a strong branch to make room, couldn't see much, but we did hear Clea's increasing alarm as she said distinctly, "Andrew! Get up this tree!". Yeah, a guide was telling a guide to get up the tree. It was crazy town down there. (Andy, incidentally, did not get up the tree)

The pride bunched up against the tree

Buffalo aggressively attacking the lion pride

Some words about the shotgun: this would be a last resort, to ensure the safety of Andy's guests (that would be us, thank you). Usually a shot in the air is enough to repel almost any animal, but if absolutely necessary, a wild animal would be shot to defend us. This is extremely rare, and some guides, in some situations,  would view it as a personal failure. But they are trained to do it. Luckily in our case, it was not necessary-and we would have been devastated if it had. The lions retreated to other areas and eventually we were able to come down. 

Meanwhile, the melee was ongoing. The cubs were in very real danger. The buffalo herd had forced a few of the lions, including the wildly meowing cubs, onto the termite mound. 

Lions on termite mound

They were almost surrounded when the mother decided to spirit them away. They boldly walked past a gauntlet of buffalo and she hid them behind another large termite mound, away from danger. Rob was impressed with her, he told us later.

Mother lion and her cubs, on safer ground

The  repositioning continued. A large, older lioness with a distinctive previous injury to her eye, tired of the action and  came toward us, stopping less than 75 feet away to rest. 

Another lion, this one a male, moved away from the kill zone, but then around toward us. Andy, Rob and Clea conferred, and it was back up the tree for us. 

This time, we were not alone up in the tree branches. Nancy had thought earlier it was possible there were snakes or even a leopard already in the tree. Alas, it was she who exclaimed, "hey, guess what's up here?". It was a leopard kill. The skeletal carcass of an impala. Man, was Mana Pools a wild place or what?

Rob with bones from leopard kill

We stayed up in the tree for a while, until there was a distinct shift in the atmosphere. The buffalo, possibly feeling they had properly avenged their fallen brother or sister (without trying to humanize them too much here) or simply ready to move on, indicated retreat. Vultures appeared.

The mother, in another bold, impressively arrogant move, led her cubs back past the herd, as if to teach her young ones who the real royalty was.

Mother leading her cubs back to the kill

The entire area had been clouded with dust, kicked up by hoofs and paws, which had given it an unreal quality; dreamy in that way where there is gauzy haze, a lack of clarity. But in the cooling of tempers and animal egos, the dust was now falling gently, like mist or even light snow. It was over.

AFTERMATH

The lions eventually reclaimed their kill and went back to feeding, almost as if nothing had happened. We came down from the tree. Rob, ever observant, announced the hilarious news that during the height of action, a squirrel made an appearance out of a large hole in the trunk of the termite tree. He peeked his head out, realized the action all around, and disappeared back into the tree.  The cubs, seemingly with newfound bravado, practically crawled entirely into the body cavity of the fallen buffalo. A photo captured the first real proof that the lions cared we were there. One of them looked directly at us:

Although we had to climb a tree twice to escape the danger they presented, the lions never really seemed interested in us. We were bystanders, trying not to direct or affect the outcome of the interplay between species. It was their world, truly wild, and I will always feel fortunate to have been made to feel like the world was not ours. Here, it belonged to them.

The next day, we went to the site of the action to walk it, to  better get a sense of the scale and the distances between the trees,  between species. The guides expected to find a carcass, maybe some bones. But beside a bit of grass which probably resided inside the fallen buffalo for a short time before meeting its fate, and a few obvious paw and hoof prints, there was nothing. Hardly a trace existed to help tell the tale from the day before of the tremendous, clashing, beautiful violence that is wild nature.

***

Rob being Rob

Clea, Andy, Nance and I. Photo by Rob

Special thanks to the  guiding services of Kavinga Safaris' Andrew Smith and Clea Bridges, who we can't recommend more highly. They continue to guide in Zimbabwe independently and can be reached at: bateleurs@hotmail.co.uk and cleabridges@yahoo.com. Rob Janisch is mostly just around for juvenile entertainment, but despite this, is actually a fantastic guide as well. He guides in several different countries in Africa, and can be reached at rhjanisch@gmail.com. To purchase photos from this post, please visit  http://goo.gl/vJwQk . 50% of the proceeds of all photos from this event will go to The Zambezi Society, which works to keep Mana Pools wild.