23.1.10

Lions and rain

Loud early morning roaring from mbagi, so we decided to head in that direction.
At 6 in the morning it is still a bit dark and chilly and driving with the wind in your face is great.
The river is drying up even if there is still a bit of running water, most of the bed is back to sand and exactly in this sand Bakari spotted the first pride of the day from an amazing distance.
It is the mbagi pride in all its component, actually the males are 2 and so far we always saw only one, but anyway, 2 adult males, 4 adult females, 3 subadults and 5 cubs were half sleeping and half playing in the river bed.
.


At a certain point they also started roaring giving us shivers and goose bumps not for fear but for the intimate emotions that this sound can give. We watched them for almost 2 hours and then we moved on.
Close to breakfast point was my turn to spot a pride, more or less twenty lions were laying some meters from the road in a shady bush, 4 of them 3 of which cubs were actually sleeping just on the side of the road some 20 mtrs farther.

.

Great sighting again, the cubs moved and went to drink and eventually from nowhere a big male walked in.
We went on just to find plenty elephants on the hills and an amazing birdlife.
Cardinal queleas, white winged widowbirds, red collared widowbirds and southern red bishops are all in breeding and it is a great show of clours.
We got a big rain in the afternoon but it cleared up so we drove in a superb light ofr wet sand and mud, the river full again and frogs singing everywhere. The sunset was sweet and was a perfect closing of the day.
Last gift was a couple of heuglin’s courser on the way back.

No comments:

Post a Comment