Aat&Elly:12 - Roan story

[Richprins]

Very special in the far north, aat!

Interesting is this older cub very dappled in coat still! Unusual!

I keep saying some northern mammals have slightly different/darker colouration sometimes, from sable to cheetah...In the old days one could even instantly recognise Pretoriuskop roan vs their northern cousins. They must be careful or the taxonomy mafia will put them into different subspecies!


Lion prides will dramatically expand during drought, and then decline again during wet, depending on the density of prey, size of adult female group, and male territorial contacts and disputes. Lion are regularly seen there, but not so much prey year-round vs central district? But lower competing pride male density in the huge area vs central?

[Pumbaa]

What an amazing sighting, Aat,

and even that far North - Always fantastic to find them there and even such a huge pride - Guess I would have stayed the rest of the day with them

[aat]

Pumbaa, Wait till the parts II, III and IV.....

What an amazing sighting, Aat,

and even that far North - Always fantastic to find them there and even such a huge pride - Guess I would have stayed the rest of the day with them

[Alf]

We have heard about this pride in that area but never found them ourselves.

[RobertT]

Saw them last October.

[aat]

Just posted Part II... hope you enjoy this too...

We have heard about this pride in that area but never found them ourselves.

[aat]

As promised.... here is Part II.... enjoy

*** Travel Tales ***
Trip to Kruger NP 2016 (October – November) New series of Stories

07 – Into the Mega Pride part II

Here is part II of this mega story about the mega pride (northern section of Kruger NP)

Part I was about the sighting October 25th 2016.

Now we skip a few days and it is November 1st 2016, this sighting was special because of the view on them and the large number of lion. At the end of this story another video we made.

Again close to Sirheni Bushcamp along the S56

We were driving on the S56 and just passed Sirheni Bushcamp. Small road and coming around one of the many “corners” we saw this pride again.
And also this time they had a kill

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They were enjoying their meal and like many times a bit lazy.

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Because it was a bit similar here as previous story I will not post too many pics of this part of the sighting. At this location we counted 18 lions.

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Relaxed, sleeping, walking, socializing …. TILL the moment Elephants arrived with some little ones and they really did not like the lions. As you can see they were approaching…

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It was impossible to make more pictures at that moment because some of the elephants were running towards the lions and we were almost in the same positions so we had to move too.
The lion were running too all directions, the cubs were afraid and hiding and then running to mommy or aunty ....
We followed the road a bit and turned left at the next “junction” and wowwwwwwww… what a nice and wonderful surprise we got there…. What a view….

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We never had such a view on lions. It almost looked like a LION-SPA… beach, water, rocks…

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They were really everywhere and this was just a few hundred meters from the others so same pride…. We found out later on. Lion on the rocks, lion drinking, lion on the beach, lion on the hill…. Counting was easy and we came to 24 at this place… 42 all together, incredible

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And, just for us … a private show
Even from this point I could not capture them all together but this was the view we had

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A bit higher on the hill several others were walking and laying down.

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We were enjoying this view for some time… probably we never see this kind of view again.

Cliffhanger…. On this last picture of Part II heads up and ears straight…. What did they see / hear and what was going to happen ? Next time , Part III you will find out…. smileeeeeeeee

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Watch the video to get the feeling to be almost into the pride.

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https://youtu.be/aPRnoVieqNI
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Will be continued soon……………


Thanks and hope you also liked this part of the story
Aat & Elly

[Lisbeth]

Simply incredible Certainly not the usual lion sighting, they are all over the place

[Mel]

An awesome lion sighting indeed! I'd love to get to see such a huuuge pride one day. Very special

[harrys]

Wow what a sighting.....so many Lions maybe one day I will be so lucky