Midday luck for most

While out in the middle of the day doing drives with the new trainning rangers we got a fortunate message that a lioness was hunting wildbeest in an open area close by. This was fairly unusual as it was midday and the sun was seriously beating down on all that was not in the shade. We spotted three wildbeest bulls lounging half asleep in the midday sun and the lioness about 100m away eyeing out thee wildbeest. We set ourselves up 60m away from the wildbeest in the shade of a small tree and stayed there for the next 1.5 hours to see the story unfold. As the lioness stalked closer we watched all the difficulties she had to compete with, from the wind to cover more wildbeest arriving with good eyesight, a lone vigilant impala ram joining the scene could give the game away at any stage. As she got a good position a black bellied bastard started walking in her direction sure to give her position away with frenzied alarms!!! By this stage our nerves where frazzled and skin sunburnt from the midday heat, but still the lioness showed unbelievable concentration. once she had got to within 20meters of the wildbeest all hell broke loose, she charged them down finding herself surrounded by the wildbeest so close to them but did not have the force to bring one down. THEN one wildbeest broke from the group and in doing so opened up it's flanks for a lionesses claws to hook on, the momentum of the fleeing also gave enough force for the lioness to flick around and pull the wildbeest to the ground. From there it was a slow process as she worked her way up it's neck to start strangling the wildbeest, 4.5 minutes later we had a dead wildbeest and a panting lioness who then called her four cubs, and a couple of new rangers to the company sure to have seen a sighting that they will battle to match in their new careers!!

Posted: &BEYOND Ngorongoro Crater by Seth Vorster, Date: 20 September 2007