Living Luangwa

I am currently in Lusaka, far away from the Valley and already missing it terribly. I won’t be returning until early January when the river is full again and we can use the boat to get back to camp. I will still be posting here throughout December with images from the past season although probably not as often.

This is a photo of the largest of the three Mwamba males who seem to have taken over the Hollywoods’ territory. He is just entering into his prime and by next year he will be a very impressive lion with a nice big mane. There was a lot of mating going on in the weeks before I left camp (with random females - some of which swam across the river from the Nsefu side of the park!) so hopefully there will be plenty cubs around next season as well..

Content Copyright Patrick Bentley Photography

I think it is fairly obvious what happened here..

Content Copyright Patrick Bentley Photography

is that this is what they do the most - sleep. Lions are extremely easy going, conserving their energy for up to 20 hrs of each day. They are remarkably chilled out. Quite often I have guests asking with hope in their voices whether they will start hunting soon or doing anything at all and most of the time the answer is ‘probably not’. It’s just the way they are…

Content Copyright Patrick Bentley Photography

The weather is hotting up now in preparation for the rains and the game viewing is getting better and better every day. Our Hollywood pride paid us a brief visit a few days ago, letting us know that they were back by sitting outside our bedroom window and roaring all night long! I came across them on the night drive as they were finishing off a puku and followed them as they stalked and killed another one. These two lionesses were very protective of it and it took a while before they allowed the other members of the pride to join them at the kill.

Content Copyright Patrick Bentley Photography

It is not often that you see a lion swimming across a river, especially the Luangwa which is stiff with crocodiles! This crazy lioness swam across to mate with one of the Mwamba males and then swam back again a few days later…

Content Copyright Patrick Bentley Photography

A couple of days ago the Mwamba pride killed a buffalo right on the main road to Mfuwe. They polished it off pretty quickly though before moving off to a nearby waterhole where they had a good drink and lay around digesting it for a full day.

Content Copyright Patrick Bentley Photography

I’ve had a few emails from readers of my blog asking why I haven’t being posting much on lions recently. Well unfortunately our Hollywood pride has been thrown out of this part of their territory by the neighbouring Mwamba pride. We witnessed them being chased off kills twice over a month ago and they then disappeared and haven’t been seen since.

So we now have the Mwamba pride in this area instead. The Mwambas seem to be a restless pride though and are constantly moving over large distances usually following the buffalo herds. This means that we are seeing less lions this year than we did last year. Still we do see them every now and then. This photo is of one of the young males in the Mwamba pride eyeing out some impala on the bank of the Luangwa river.

We are still hoping that the Hollywoods will reappear but at the moment it seems very unlikely. Looking on the positive side though we are having loads of leopard sightings and this is probably as a result of the reduced lion activity. For now we will just have to wait and see what happens.

Content Copyright Patrick Bentley Photography