Search for Lions.
We were once again on the search for lions, when an update from one of the ivory stations Niel informing everyone that there was o0ne male lion on Tespe . being close to the loc I slowly started moving in that directions but toke a different rout to everyone else then another update came over the radio which informed us that he was wrong that there are more that one male here there in fact was 2 males one female from central pride and one male from eastern pride. The one male from central Ketumetsi was mating with Noku, with Lebala Bontle just walking around the area.
On the thing about the place they chose to mate in was the grey area between the two prides boundary so about 100 meters down the road was Leru the largest lion in the park at the moment.
The honeymooners was most guides call a mating pair of lions were mating then vocalizing right after so their present was not unknown to Leru but he was pushed back by Lebala Bontle so it seemed like Lebala Bontle was the body guard to the honeymooners.
We left them there that morning and went back to the lodge for breakfast when the afternoon drive started I had an idea were I would of like to look when the sunset so I chose the close picnic stop to that spot and made my rout plan to end there. The drive was invent full with Jaco claiming that he saw 3 leopards in one tree but unfortunately I could only seen one (I think) all I saw was this yellow little part in the tree and was told that that was the leopard but I'm not too sure but he said he saw them so I believe him.
Stop time can and I stopped at Fish eagle with Charl. Me and Charl had the same idea we wanted to go look at the lions tonight senescing something might happen.
Steve was there before us and told us that one of the centrals males had left towards us so we kept and eye open and slowly moved to ward where the honeymooners were but couldn't find the other male and just before the honeymooners here he came out of the Grass seemed that he fooled everyone by walking away and then turning around and coming back.
We had him come down the road and the lying down in the road which was amazing! We had him like that for a few minutes and he got up and move behind us as we thought way from us so me and charl decided to go look foe Leru because from two reasons wanted to know if he was still in the same area and secondly he is both mine and charl favorite lion.
As we drove down the road we found him walking, not way but towards the other lions. As we watch him he would start moving, move about ten meters and then stop either lying down or standing still. What he did next got all of us very excited, he started vocalizing.
I decided to go see where Lebala Bontle was so I made a U-turn and move back to were we left him just around the one bend less that a 100 meters away was Lebala Bontle lying next to the road looking in Leru direction, I slowly very slowly move past him and made another u turn and started following Lebala Bontle because by the time I made my u turn he had gotten up and was starting to move towards Leru. I told charl what was happing from my side and he did the same from his side. He told me that Leru was moving towards Lebala Bontle so now we both knew that we made the right decision to come this side because first of the sighting and secondly we were all by ourselves.
As Lebala Bontle was moving forward and vocalizing Leru lost his nerve and turned and started to head farther into his territory but would stop and look back and vocalize which made us think that maybe he would turn and come towards Lebala Bontle but that never happened because every time Leru stopped and thought to come towards Lebala Bontle, Lebala Bontle would vocalizes and Leru would turn and run.
This went one for quite a while then they were quite deep into eastern prides territory Lebala Bontle was not vocalizing as much as he was and not as loud either and Leru on the other hand was louder and much more often. Lebala Bontle got close to one of the tree he wanted to mark against and his vocalize was like a sub adult roar, it was really funny, as soon as he finished he started with some determination to move back into to the grey zone closer to his brother. While Leru just walk a few more meters stop and vocalize like his life depend on it and it was amazing we followed him for a few more minutes till he moved off the road into an open field at which time we decided to head back to the lodge and enjoy a well deserved dinner
Ivory Tree Game Lodge
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