Fight 12/8/2011

We tried our luck again at Lulenga juu.... most of the lions were gone but at least we found the young wounded male with an half eaten baboon kill. The sun was setting and we proceeded towards w7.From the roaring we heard in the morning we thought the others were moving east.... I spotted a male crossing the river close to Mbuyu ya chupa so we waited him just the other side. It was our dear friend Grumpy, the female was already on our side and his brother appeared from the tall grass soon after. We anticipate their destination and waited them to walk to us. It was pretty cool, the lioness was definitely on a mission,close to the river crossing at w7 she started roaring at the top of her voice.... I looooove that.The brother was also sniffing the female's urine and grimacing in his attempt to check her status.... but still keeping his distance from Grumpy.Then they all settled on the bank and went dozing.We moved towards the river drive just to find bushbuck pride in an open area close to the end of the second forest. There were a couple of car so we decide to loop down to the river before coming back and in the river we found other three lioness. They are often seen alone in the first forest but we never so them in this area, they probably are a split of the pride. . After a while we went back to bushbuck, the cars were gone so we enjoyed them walking down towards the river with the small cubs. They settled under the same acacia where the other three lioness were sleeping. They all started dozing peacefully so we left.no more then 300 meters further we heard the noise of a fight... I reversed as fast as possible and bolted towards the cats. When we arrived some lioness were attacking two of the three lone females in a bunch of thick bush. We could not see much more then the females crouching down to protect their softer parts... all over was dust. The thing was basically finished before we arrived but the females were still stuck there so we stayed. After some minutes the girls from bushbuck pride attacked again. It was chaos, in the same bush, one female manage to escape but the other was surrounded by the bushbuck girls. Some of the girls actually were scanning all around to look for the one that sneaked away. They all started roaring out of adrenalin to declare the ownership of that land. The noise was stunning... shivers down our spine and goose bumps on our skin. The males were also around the show also roaring loudly... man o man... it was something..... but it was not over.... the bushbuck girls came back to the remaining female and attacked again... the snarling and growling took the place of the roaring on a really emotional concert....The males came in but went basically to protect the female... after some discussions the bushbuck girls went back to the shade and so did the males.Some minutes later the lucky female sneaked out of the bush and disappeared.. showing bleeding wounds on the rump.We wonders what happened... it was weird..... who are these three females? if they are a split of the pride why they were attacked? If they are not why they remained in such a close proximity to a pride that big? Questions with no answers. In the afternoon we went to check a lopard kill we found in the morning hoping the leopard would come back. we waited, we waited, we waited and when we  thougt that nothing would have ever happened a big big male leopard climbed the bank up and showed himself.He is probably the same big male I saw mating at the beginning of the season.What a leopard man...... It never came all the way to the kill but sat on the bank and we were happy like this.