Three sightings of lions

The afternoon’s drive seemed to be dedicated to lions. There are less than a hundred lions in the Mara triangle, but we must have seen around ten of them in a few hours. The most interesting one was this lonely adult male which had managed to kill a wildebeest just before we saw it. It was in the bush next to where we’d parked the previous evening to watch wildebeest cross a stream. From its short and very blonde mane, we concluded that it was young and stressed, so we left it to eat in peace and went on.

Later in the evening, we swung by to the same spot. The lion had had its fill, and it sat by the Mara and gazed contentedly at the scene in front of it. Do we exist only because we think? Animals teach us that this Cartesian notion is false. Without romanticizing, I believe, from all the accounts that I have read from hunters, that animals have a sense of self and absolutely definitely strive to live. Lions will hunt to eat when they feel hungry, growl when they feel threatened, walk away when they are disturbed. After they have eaten their fill, why would they not sit down in content and look out at their surroundings with a quiet sense of satisfaction? This one glanced around to see the noisy things which had crept up behind it, and then went back to gazing ahead. I took a photo of its face as it turned. It was stained dark with the blood of its kill. A lion has a sense of its own life, but not of the life of its food.

After we’d left the lion to its kill and driven ahead, we came on a pair of lionesses sitting in a little hollow in some rocks, near a trickle of water. They also looked content. There was a minor gathering of Landrovers, full of people taking photos. We joined them, and watching the lionesses lying at ease I realized that tourists have changed their behaviour. These wild creatures now accept smelly and noisy Landrovers as something harmless. If the game wardens were to disappear one day, how many lions would be killed before they became wary again?

Finally, just as the horizon came level with the sun, we came back to the group which had been defeated by Cape buffaloes earlier in the day. The lions seemed asleep, but the lionesses were just beginning to wake. As we watched, they opened their eyes. One by one they got up and stretched, and then walked into the grass. The three buffaloes had been grazing here all afternoon, and, by their looks, were ready to settle down for the night. But as the lionesses walked past them, one of them got up and chased after the trio (you can just about see the tawny lionesses behind the tall grass in front of the buffalo, and to its left). As the three lionesses ran away, the buffalo still stood, making sure they were going. This was the last sight we saw as darkness fell. An African day was over.

Winter of the Lion

We were on the open grassland and watching the stately progress of about a dozen Masai giraffe across the landscape when Stephen said, “Look on the other side.” We turned to see a lion emerge from behind a thicket of bushes. This lions’s mane shaded from golden to brown to black, indicating that it was well-fed and stress free. But it didn’t walk like it was free of stress.

As it sat down, another lion emerged behind it, looking quite as stressed out as its companion. This wasn’t far from where we had seen the trio of males at night. Since there are less than a thousand lions in the Maasai Mara reserve, their home ranges are unlikely to overlap. This had to be one of the lions we’d already seen; so maybe they were just tired from keeping such long hours?

No. When the third lion emerged, limping, it was clear that something was wrong. The reason wasn’t hard to guess when three cape buffalos emerged from the trees and took up positions around the field. It is a modern convention of writing about wildlife that one does not ascribe human feelings to them. But as we find more about the biochemistry, evolution, and behaviour, we have come to realize that there is not so much of difference between us and other mammals. So using language which describes human behaviour for animals, as writers did until the beginning of the 20th century, is probably appropriate. The best description of this scene that came to my mind was that the lions looked defeated, and the buffaloes seemed determined not to let them out of sight.

The buffaloes stopped at the edge of the field, and the limping lion came past its two companions. It seemed to want to get far away from the buffaloes before it sat down. We seemed to have come across the end of a hunt that ended badly for the lions. I’d read about the how the Cape buffaloes’ bad temper got it into hunters’ lists of the big five, and seen videos of buffaloes successfully fighting off lions. Now I seemed to have come across the aftermath of one such encounter.

Why did the injured lion not go further? As I looked forward I got the answer to my question. Three lionesses were resting at the edge of the field. Now they got up and looked around. Sound carries a long distance over the grassland, and I’m sure they had a good idea of what had happened. They assessed the situation for a few seconds.

And then they walked away from the stressed out males: almost like a teenager pretending that they had nothing at all to do with an embarrassing older person. The injured lion looked at them until they were out of sight, and settled in to pant and feel sorry for itself.

Five big ones

When you use the words five and big together in the context of East African safaris, people think you are going to talk about The Big Five: the elephant, the leopard, the lion, the rhino and the Cape buffalo. That’s not really what I want to show you here. Instead I want to introduce you to five things in Amboseli national park that came as surprises (and very pleasant ones) because I had no idea that I would see them. In fact, until Anthony pointed out a East African black-backed jackal (Canis mesomelas) I didn’t even know of this creature. The sight of it running through the grassland with a stolen part of a kill, an antelope’s hindquarters, was an exciting sight. I met this species later, for a much better sighting, but it wasn’t as thrilling as this.

Seeing an Egyptian goose (Alopochen aegyptiaca) for the first time also counts among my big memories of Amboseli. I should have been aware of this species, it is after all visible in ancient Egyptian artwork. For a moment I thought I was looking at a ruddy shelduck, but Anthony gave the correct identification immediately. The red eye and the patch around it is a dead giveaway.

The huge dust devils which spring up through the national park in this season also count as a big surprise. I’d noticed little whirligigs of dust spin across the plains for a while, but this spout was amazing. I’d read about the dust, and was prepared with a breathing mask and lots of antihistamines. But nothing had prepared me for these incredible tall devils.

Meeting the iridescent glossy ibis (Plegadis falcinellus) definitely counts among the big ones. Not because it was a lifer, but because it was like meeting an old friend for the first time in a decade on a street car halfway across the world. This was something I knew, but hadn’t given much thought to. The fact is that it is one of the most widely distributed of Ibis species.

The Cape buffalo (Syncerus caffer) is definitely one of the Big Five, no matter which way you think of it. I thought it surprising that it looked so much like an Indian water buffalo. But then I began to notice differences: its more robust build, and the way its horns meet at the center of the forehead. Fortunately I never got to test the bad temperament which has led to its genes never being mixed into domestic bovines.