What began as an ordinary morning game drive, quickly turned into an unforgettable encounter. An unfortunate flat tyre and quick vehicle swap delayed their start – but as it turned out, put them perfectly in time for what was to come.
Read the words of Njabulo Ngwazi, as he shares the story of a hungry, pregnant lioness on the hunt – and a fearless red hartebeest mother’s attempt to save her calf.
WATCH THE LIVE ACTION VIDEO HERE.
It was 05h50 a.m., I had parked my game viewer on the loading ramp and walked to the kitchen to fetch a milk carton for the morning drive. I got back to the game viewer at 05:55 a.m. and noticed that my front left tyre was low on air. The guests arrived whilst I was checking the tyre out.
I asked them if they could give me 5 minutes of their time so I could quickly drive the game viewer to the vehicle workshop where a compressor was located for filling up the low tyres.
The compressor took ages to load up and so I decided to use a standby vehicle as I thought that if I waited any longer, the 5 minutes would turn to 10. And with guests when you mention a time you have to stick to it!.
I quickly offloaded my hot box and cooler box onto the standby game viewer and drove off to the loading ramp where the guests had been waiting for me.
“Thank you for waiting guys”, I said to the guests. “Hop on in”. The guests smiled and hopped in.
I turned my radio on at exactly 06:03 a.m. and Mandla G, a fellow guide, was reporting on the radio that he was mobile from one of our other lodges and that he was following up on the last known location of the lioness. I acknowledged his report and reported that I am also departing from the lodge.
I informed the guests that Mandla is following up on the lioness that the Wildlife Monitors had spoken to them about the day before when we did the wildlife monitoring experience (a unique experience offered by the Reserve whereby guests can spend a few hours with the Conservation Team as they conduct their daily monitoring patrols).
Mandla got on the radio and reported that he had a visual on the lioness. I quickly asked if I could join as I was also in the area; he agreed and said it would be better if I approached from Haartebest East, a road along the White Umfolozi River.
I drove down to the road. Mandla again confirmed that the lioness was now crossing a stream headed towards Mlambo Road. Seconds after he reported that, I got a visual of Mandla, driving slowly ahead of me. I slowed down, to try and lessen the sound of the engine.
“There she is”, I whispered to the guests. She was strolling ahead of Lizo’s vehicle, another guide who had followed up on the sighting, and Mandla was driving behind Lizo. “Siyabonga Mandla”, I said, as Mandla turned left onto Blue Crane Road, to give me way to be behind Lizo.
We slowly followed her. “Is she pregnant?”, mama asked. Mama is a name I gave to the guest. “Yes mama, she is heavily pregnant. She can give birth any minute now”. We alllaughed. “She is not the best of mothers but she is a skilled hunter”, I said to the guests. She looked hungry and on a mission to find herself some “breakfast”.
She then walked onto Mlambo Road. Ahead of her on the other side of an open area was a herd of wildebeest who had seen her coming a mile away and Kudus had also alarmed a while back, signaling to the lioness that we see you.
She kept walking up the road, and then suddenly she went down. “She must be tired, everything and everyone sees her”, I thought to myself. Little did I know that she had seen a herd of Red Hartebeest just on the other side of Flat Rock (a common drinks stop during game drives). I couldn’t see the Hartebeests because the rock was in our way.
We took our binoculars and watched her “sitting”. She even closed her eyes for a few seconds, which made me believe even more that she must be exhausted. Boy was I wrong.
She bolted out of the rock and shot straight to the side that we couldn’t see;, I quickly drove forward a bit, and she and a Hartebeest calf popped out from the side of the rock and ran onto the road a few meters ahead of us.
“She got the calf” I whispered, but before she had properly sunk her teeth into it, the mother of the calf came from the side to help by trying to attack the lioness, but this lioness was smart. She lifted her head, saw the mother and latched onto her. Commotion was heard all around. Alarm calls, distress calls from the calf, a growl from the lioness. It was loud. Very loud. So loud that the commotion invited a brown hyaena to come by (an animal numerous on the Reserve but seldomly seen due to their secretive ways).
What’s that JB? Asked one of the guests. “It’s a hyaena, a brown hyaena”. I responded. The hyaena was running towards the commotion from the other side of the open “kill” area. The hyaena had to go down a drainage line and up again on “our” side of the commotion.
The lioness got distracted. A black backed jackal had also heard the cries of the calf and decided to go and check what was going on. The jackal saw the distressed calf and went straight for it. The calf’s cry got even louder, distracting the lioness from her bounty. She lifted her head and saw the jackal was going for the calf. She let go of the already dead mother hartebeest and chased off the jackal.
She gently bit on the calf and took it closer to the other hartebeest that were alarming. You could tell that they wished they could help, but they were helpless.
I kept my eyes on the near side of the open plains hoping to see the hyaena emerge on our side. Something must’ve happened by the drainage line as the hyaena never emerged. It would’ve been an easy steal for the hyaena as the lioness was distracted and focusing on the calf.
The lioness was now herding the young calf around the helpless hartebeest. It felt as if she was hoping that one of the adults would feel bad and finally want to ‘’save it . The hartebeest were smart, none of them got close.
The lioness bit hard enough on the calf that its cries eventually stopped. We all knew that the calf was now in a better place and that this was nature in its rawest form.
We drove off in the direction of the hyaena. We saw it bolt back in the direction it came from. We had no idea why it never emerged to take advantage of an easy steal. We stopped for drinks on the other side of the open plains and watched the lioness finish off what she had started. What a memorable experience for us all!