Sura ya Kumi na Tano - Simba wa Serengeti

Chapter Fifteen - Lions of the Serengeti

The lion is truly King in the Serengeti. Huge, powerful, vicious and without equal.

They are the apex predator in Nature.

This is a young male. He has yet to prove his worth, although, frankly, he looks pretty impressive to me.

Being impressive can, I'm sure you'll agree, get a little tiring...

Despite their ferociousness, they form strong packs, family groups, of up to twenty individuals. No other cat does this.

Like many cats, lions have a strong affinity with trees. Youngsters can often be seen up in them...

From here, they can see the world,

friend and foe alike. They have few friends...

However, the older guys prefer to just lie around underneath,

occasionally going to the effort of getting up, walking...

... to another tree.

Then lying down again,

Another siesta.

Trees are also good for dining out underneath. This pack has killed a buffalo. That is no small achievement.

 This handsome male, who probably took no part in the killing, has had his fill of raw meat.

 And gets in some siesta practice.

One of the killers decides that there is not enough shelter from the beating sun. She gets up, wanders over to our truck,

and spies some excellent shelter underneath us. It is at times like this that one considers the wisdom of having all the windows and roof open...

She stayed put. She would not move. We could not move. We did not know which direction to move the truck without risking injury to her and perhaps being on the receiving end of a very angry lioness. Strangely, none of us were keen on getting out to take a look at exactly where she was. She had just fed and might decide to stay there for a day or two.

Mind you, better underneath us than on top of us!

We needed help. Thankfully we had a functioning radio (not all safari trucks do!) and, after some patient, slightly apprehensive waiting, help arrived. We lived another day. My blood pressure eventually returned to normal.

The male is the boss. They tend to leave the killing to the females, their job is to guard their domain. And that is exactly what this formidable beast was doing when we found it.

Some other lions had wandered into his kingdom, and he set about seeing them off.

 He surveyed all from his throne on a rocky outcropping.

All this power, all this aggression, all this impressive behaviour has but one end. To reproduce. To produce the next generation of killers. To survive. 

And this lions have done.

And we will see the results in the next chapter:

Sura ya Kumi na Sita - Simba Watoto wa Serengeti

Chapter Sixteen - Lions Cubs of the Serengeti