Early in the morning on the 14th of July at about 4:30am I heard 3 male lions roaring to the south of Kings Camp. I knew they were close. Very close but they weren’t calling from the same place. It appeared from the calls that there were two males calling together from the south of our camp and the third male further east. The two males were communicating to their other brother after their evening patrol of their territory.

Early in the morning on the 14th of July at about 4:30am I heard 3 male lions roaring to the south of Kings Camp. I knew they were close. Very close but they weren’t calling from the same place. It appeared from the calls that there were two males calling together from the south of our camp and the third male further east. The two males were communicating to their other brother after their evening patrol of their territory.

We knew that the calls came from the 3 Timbavati Males the dominant male lions of the southern sector of the Timbavati game reserve.
These Boys are enormous and yet are still quite young. They were born to the Timbavati pride in the northern part of the reserve in 2004. Over the past 13 months or so they have been making quite a presence in our traversing area. The males have fathered the new Machaton cubs by mating with the young Machaton lioness. The cubs our now about 3.5 – 4 months old and are starting to become really relaxed with our vehicles and their playful antics provide our guests with incredible moments on their safari!

The roaring continued until about 7:30 that morning and Morné and myself headed out from Kings Camp and Waterbuck Camp respectively in search of the Boys! I started heading east away from camp in search of the lone male but about 10 minutes later Morné called me on our private channel. He had found the Sohebele pride really close to our camp. This pride suffered the loss of one of the adult females not too long ago when three nomadic male lions attacked the pride and killed her.

The Sohebeles were looking very thin although they had a bit of blood on their faces. They are taking immense strain with out the other adult lioness being around to help hunt. They probably had fed during the night although on only something small like a young impala as they weren’t full at all!

After watching them groom each other for awhile we carried on our search for the Timbavati Males. We didn’t have any luck although there were a lot of tracks in the area of the brothers. We got side tracked with a group of white rhinos that I had never seen before. That’s the great thing about the Timbavati. Its so vast and sharing unfenced boundaries with the Kruger National Park, Klaserie and Umbabat private game reserves we have such immense movement of animals between the different areas and we get to see new animals all the time. There were 2 females, a youngster and a large male in this crash of rhinos.

Suddenly another Guide, from Motswari, Chad came on the radio reporting the Sohebeles feeding on a buffalo bull about 100m from where Morné and I had left them earlier on. I immediately started making my way into the area and approached the sighting cautiously. I have never seen the Sohebeles on a buffalo kill and though that they had made the kill themselves as it was a very fresh kill.

Suddenly Chad and I noticed a large male lion stalking up to 3 of the Sohebele sub adults feeding on the dead buffalo. It was one of the Timbavati males! The Sohebeles were so engrossed in their free meal that they only noticed the big male when it was too late! It appeared that the buffalo had been killed by the Timbavati males early in the morning. It appeared that the Sohebele pride had stumbled onto the kill after the males had left it unattended to continue the last of their territorial patrols. This was a short lived bonus as the free meal would have done them a world of good.

The attacker came in so fast and managed to make a violent contact with one of the sub adults asserting his dominance very vocally!! It was an extraordinary sighting showing the amazing raw strength of an adult male lion!
Unfortunately one of the other Timbavati Males managed to get hold of the young Sohebele lioness and with one swift yet powerful bite crushed her neck and killed her.

The Sohebele pride suffered one tragedy after other and it will be interesting to see if they manage to recover from the lost of two females.

As guides in this beautiful part of Africa we get emotionally attached to the animals that we view. We see them every day whilst out on safari, we watch them grow, we watch them play and lastly we watch them try and survive in a brutal wilderness. You can’t help becoming besotted with them but you have to bear in mind that it is nature’s way and you cannot interfere. We are just mere visitors to their Eden.

Andrew Aldo De Luca
Kings Camp Guide