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Western Serengeti
Monday, August 28 A female lioness and one of her three cubs shortly after she finished nursing them. |
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Western Serengeti
Monday, August 28 A female lioness and one of her three cubs shortly after she finished nursing them. |
| Success! Charles, our guide, had found the lioness again and she had one of her cubs with her. He was in the other vehicle and radioed to us. We rushed over to where they were. The cub was just adorable. We followed the lioness over to a bush near the river bank. She lay down in the shade from the bush and the lion cub went into the bushes. |  |
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We heard meowing sounds coming from the bushes, and soon the lion cub reemerged followed by another cub. Soon after, a third cub came out. They each had distinct personalities. The one that had been alone with its mother before was clearly the most adventurous and self-assured. The cub that came out last was the most timid. |
| After a couple minutes of play, the cubs moved over to mom and started nudging her. She licked them a few times and then rolled over to let them nurse. After nursing for about ten minutes, the cubs lay down and nodded off for a few minutes then retreated to their den. We waited for a while to see if they'd come back out, to no avail. |  |
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As we drove back to the lodge for lunch, we spotted this beautiful
Glossy Starling ruffling its feathers.
Everyone else decided to relax by the pool for the afternoon, but I wanted to try to get a few more photos of the cubs, so we headed back to where we had seen them previously. We waited for about 15 minutes and didn't see or hear anything. |
| We decided to see if we could get around to the other side of the river, and perhaps get a glimpse of them in their den. We drove up the river for about 15 minutes and didn't find a way to cross, so we headed back. When we returned to the area, we found the mother lioness in the grass about 100 yards from the den, but no cubs. We decided to watch her for a while to see if she would call the cubs, or if she'd walk back over to the den. |
| She just lay there seemingly without a care in the world. Charles suggested that we drive back over to the den to see if the cubs would come out. As we approached, we saw that two of them were playing where we had seen them nurse in the morning. We parked about 25 feet away and watched for a while. It was getting fairly late and the light was starting to fade, but I did manage to get a few photos of the two cubs playing. |  |