Lionesses bring it home

Published on 2 August 2025 at 05:53

Photo of the week: Amalgamated lion

Highlight of the week: The lionesses break the English jinx. Penalties are no longer an impossible barrier.

Lowlight of the week: Immigration issues strike again. Our plans to return to Zambia in April 2026 come a cropper.

Maximum temperature: 31 degrees. But we record 15 degrees in Chipata.

Rainfall: Not a drop

Sunday. A day of rest. Our one day off. If you can have a day off, when you are working 24/7. 7 days a week. Because medicine has never been a 9 to 5 job. From 5pm on Saturday until 7am on Monday, our prices double. If you want to see a doctor here on a Sunday your pockets have to be deeper. Or you have to be particularly unwell. The higher price discourages nuisance calls on a Sunday. At least.

It’s Sunday. 05:00. Pitch black outside. The baboons are still asleep in the trees. An unwelcome noise emits from the phone. Not a phone call warning us of impending work. But an insistent alarm call. To wake us up. We have a game drive booked. We rise groggily. Move about the house with practiced ease. Shower. Dress. Make coffee to go. Pack up breakfast in a cool bag. Binoculars. Camera. Warm fleeces. Sun glasses. Hats. Phones checked: Doc phone. Keith’s phone. My phone. Nothing is brewing. Thunderbirds are go.

Perry is waiting for us at Tribal Textiles. A 2 minute drive from the park gate. Perry is a dear friend and a star guide. He has some study time off guiding duties. His walking guide exams around the corner. Perhaps we are doing him a favour? He maintains that we are. Giving him a break from the books. Respite. Perry will share his office with us this morning. Doc Ellie and Crispin (the football saviour) join us to learn from the student and master guide. Perry has an adventure planned. But the plan will take shape as we roll.

We sit in an open game viewer. Arriving as they open the park at 06:00. The sun rises slowly. The dark landscape taking shape. The shape of our drive emerging.

Perry has a tip that hyenas are making noises at Mbangula lagoon. Whoops and giggles. Let’s go there first and check it out. Mushroom loop can wait a bit. An 8 vehicle self-drive convoy precedes us. The park looks busy at this point. We eat their dust for a minute. But soon find our own groove. Inside knowledge of the park finds us alone again.

Perhaps the self-drivers are chasing their own tips and rumours. We thank the hearsay. Rejoicing that we can only now hear more natural bush sounds. For now all is quiet. The lagoon is still. We approach a large bevy of wading birds. Pelican. Marabou stork. Egret. Hadeda ibis. Yellow-billed stork. All digging in the mud and water for fish, snails, tasty morsels. Fish in their ever shrinking water courses seeking to estivate. To bury themselves in deep mud. To see them through until the next rains. We leave the birds and panicking fish to it. And direct ourselves toward Mushroom loop.

The peace is broken by baboons barking. In the distance, over to our left. A predator for sure. Could this be a leopard? Perhaps lion? Wild dog? Or hyena? Any, or all of the above. We follow the sounds. Along a rough path. Some bumpy bush. We see the baboons. Still barking. The baboons look in the same direction. Towards an open area. A giraffe also stares intently into the distance. What can they all see?

Another noise. A strangled, throttled cry for help. An animal in distress. Perry turns round excitedly. A buffalo. Being taken down by lions. Hold on! He fixes the source of the noise in his head. And then follows a torturous route to get us there. In and out of mopani trees. Dodging the dead sharp mopani stumps. That stick out like spike strips. Conspiring to halt our progress. Slashing at our tyres. We find a graded track. Round a corner. And there they are: A pride of 10 lion. Goading a buffalo. The bull buffalo sits. Having lost face. Quite literally. Defeated.

Our comfortable, self-delusional narrative, that lions kill first, eat later is destroyed. The feasting has already begun. No Lord’s prayer. No pause to respect the recently departed. No initial suffocation, nor throat embrace. These lion show no respect for this magnificent, but soon to be ex bovine. Disney doesn’t get a look in.

The back legs already paralysed by some well-aimed bites to the spinal cord. This hard-hearted pride is ruthless. Gripping but sickening. An imposing beast is outnumbered and outmanoeuvred. His 3 male companions look on forlornly. Nothing can be done. They stand there. Hapless. Helpless.

Two guilty lionesses do the right thing. They take hold of the buffalo’s mouth and neck. To suffocate the doomed ox. To put it out of its misery. But the rest of the pride can’t help themselves. They resume their premature feast. Relishing really fresh meat. They lick the hide. Gnawing through the tough skin. Penetrating with claw and tooth, with innards in mind. The guts. The prime cuts. Heart a favourite. And liver. Little will go to waste. The buffalo loses consciousness. The ghost is given up. There is a constant low growl. Ecstatic purrs. The lion content. Punctuated by snarls and teeth baring. The whole carcass covered by continuous amalgamated lion.

Ten lion our best estimate. This means 6 are missing in action. Surely 6 grown lion can look after themselves? We can’t see the familiar curtained tail of Stumpy. Nor the swollen teats of Stumpy’s pregnant sister. We park our unease. And saviour the exclusivity that Perry’s skills have provided. A most precious siting. Our first lion kill in 13 years. As rare as super-fresh buffalo steak. Perry’s senses have guided us to the sharp end of South Luangwan wildlife.

Another friend and guide, Yotam, arrives five minutes into our private viewing. Yotam was nearby when we followed the cries and barks from the baboons. He went off on a tangent. Also a productive trajectory. Yotam shares his news. Another lioness has been injured in the buffalo hunt. She lies in a thicket licking her wounds. Buffalo horns so deadly. The thicket hides her identity. Her prognosis unknown.

The bush telegraph clicks and clacks into action. Morse would be so proud. Mr Alexander Bell would raise a glass. As we leave the melee of joyful lion, our swift exit is impeded by car after car, all bearing expectant safari goers, bearing long lenses. This is as close as it gets to a rush hour here. All mediated by instant messaging. Old style and new.

Perry resets the agenda. Mushroom loop our next arena. En-route a baby African Crowned Eagle screeches for his mother. Mum close by choosing to play deaf or dumb. Controlled crying we decide. This mother now has his measure. The attention seeking brat needs tough love. She hops around, but ignores his sobs. He will soon learn to self-soothe.

Mushroom loop is devoid of mushrooms. Too dry. Too bright. We stop by a drying lagoon to break our fast. Our breakfast needs no fungi. Oats, seeds, nuts, fruit and yoghurt suffice. We five gathered omnivores can admire the feeding habits of our fellow diners. The carnivores that gorge on ill-fated buffalo. The nearby hippos that munch on Nile cabbage. The gathered assorted birds that snatch insects and grubs from ground and air. Crocodiles bide their time, and perhaps digest last night’s prey. Silence is golden. A gravitational pull of dining lions provides us with absolute solitude. Aside from the chuckling hippos.

As we digest, Perry drives. But his enthusiasm infects us and we are pulled back to the river. A journey of giraffe are nearing the river. A never event is about to occur. Perry has an inkling of their intent. He divines their plans and bisects their route. We park on sand, across the river from the 7 impossibly tall ungulates. They look nervous. But determined. Purposeful. 6 females and 1 male. Slowly. Cautiously. They dip their toes. Nothing like the frenetic scramble of the lions crossing the Luangwa a couple of weeks ago. Their long gracious legs wade through the water. Barely coming over their knees. They cross the river in a line. Queueing. Unhurried. But watchful. Perry has only witnessed this once before. Giraffes rarely cross rivers. Almost never.

As we wend our way back to the gate, we pass another vehicle. Perry pauses to share. Tell of our route and our sightings. The guides exchange reports. Nyanja. Coded but packed with recent history. The tourists, in the back, tell us excitedly of nearby lions eating a buffalo. Have you seen them? They crow. We nod and smile. Yes. We were there as the buffalo said its last goodbyes. We outbrag. (But of course our guide is the best in the Zambia. Possibly in the whole of Africa.) We say without words. Our Sunday morning place of worship has delivered again.

Sunday has hallowed ground worshiped elsewhere. Football even reaches our deepest darkest corner. Somehow we witness the ebbs and flows. The wounds and victories played out in Basel’s green temple. A draw and stalemate impossible. There must be a loser.

There must be a winner. The Spanish bull stumbles. Then falls. The lionesses roar. The trophy rightly theirs. Again.