Follow me!

Just before we headed out for the morning, we said that we'd going looking for lions. About half hour into the drive two male lions were found, so we headed of to go see them. As we were nearing the lions we found a male elephant, so I said to the guests lets go and see the lions first and we'll come back to the elephant, they all said great. Had a look at the male lions, which eventually laid down, so after a while I said lets leave these two lions and go and have a look at that elephant and then go for some tea and coffee. We got back to the elephant, he left the tree that he was feeding on and wondered off into the bush, but we followed him for a while, and to our surprise the elephant lead us straight to a female leopard, which was laying on a tree that had been pushed over buy an elephant. The leopard just lay there and watched the elephant walk buy and so did we and all of us could not believe our luck. So we sat with this leopard, taking photos, eventually she got tired of laying there and got up and started walking and we started following her. She was on the hunt, while we were following her another ranger that was with the two male lions said that they were heading in our direction. Now that could be exciting for us but not so much for the leopard. We got an open area and she saw some impala on the far side of the clearings and she proceeded to head that way, when she got to the drainage line, the male lions reached the edge of the clearings. Now we dont know whether the lion actually saw the leopard cause the leopard sure didn't know that the lions were behind her, but what it looked like was that the lion and leopard were hunting the same herd of impalas, cause we'd parked at an angle and the leopard was to our front right of the vehicle and the lion was back right and they were both looking in the same direction. Only when the lion walked past the back of our vehicle did the leopard notice the lion, but the lion didn't see her at this point, and only when he turned around and headed back in the direction he'd come from did he notice the leopard, now she was ready to start running, but she'd waited to see if her camouflage would keep her hidden from the lion, but it didn't and she bolted for the nearest tree with the lion after her, but she was to quick and the lion gave up and went towards his brother. While she was watching the lion leave she thought it would be a good idea to get out of there and she did but what she didn't know was that now both lions were following her, but she was far away enough for her to feel comfortable and she proceeded on her way. The leopard is still alive and so are the two male lions, but what an experience that was, it shows you nature is truly amazing.

Posted: Exeter Lodges by Craig Parsons, Date: 1 August 2010