male leopard vs 3 lionesses

There were reports of a young female leopard seen during the morning. The afternoon we went to see if we might find her. We drove around the area and suddenly my guest Arto said: “Stop there she is”. This was great as he spotted her first sitting down in a patch of open grass. We viewed her for a long time and also saw her almost killing a nyala. This was the young female that we have been seeing the last couple of months which is quite relaxed. Handing over the sighting we were very happy and excited in how the afternoon started. This was just the beginning of a day to remember. Went for sundowners and asked after the break for any updates on the radio. Some other vehicles located 3 lionesses close by. We started making our way and arrived at the sighting with three big adult lionesses sleeping. A number of vehicles have viewed her before us so we were the only ones currently in the sighting. It was not ten minutes after that and suddenly one of the lionesses jumped up and ran through a thicket to our left. Just behind the thicket came a growling sound and our tracker Zakele shouted: “Leopard, up there”. We moved the vehicle to a better viewing position. There it was, the lionesses under a tree growling at a male leopard in the canopy. After a while the lionesses gave up and moved off a few meters away. Now the male leopard had a chance to get away. He jumped out moving away in a different direction. The lionesses spotted this and followed him once more. The male leopard gave one growl and within a flash up another tree much bigger than the previous one growling at them once more. The lionesses gave up eventually and moved off. The male leopard realised that the distance is safe and he moved off in a flash in the opposite direction to safer grounds. We discovered that the lionesses killed a Nyala and that might have attracted this male without him noticing the 3 lionesses being present. The other conclusion was that he also might have just stumble upon them. This was amazing seeing two special cat species interacting with each other. Leopards are normally very shy on Phinda, but this time this male was not even bothered by our presence.

Posted: Phinda by philip de bruyn, Date: 27 January 2008