It was a cold winter morning in june when we headed out for drive. Very soon we found fresh lion tracks walking down the road, they crossed the river and went into the bush. We circled the block and noticed that the tracks didn't come out. We circled the block twice and then positioned our vehicle at a point where we thought that they were likely to come out.
Luck was on our side that morning and after a couple of minutes 2 subadult lions jumped out of the bush in front of our vehicle.
They were playing and chasing each other and were so focussed on their games that they initially didnt even see our car! We know these subadults and see them quite often, they are normally accompanied by 2 adult lionesses. Today was not different and soon the lionesses also appeared out of the bush. They seemed to have more serious things in mind and looked to be in hunting mode. But after a couple of minutes they couldn't resist anymore and started playing with the cubs, chasing them up and down the riverbed.
It was then that the subadult female decided to take things higher up and she climbed a tree! Behaviour that is normally more common for the other big cat in our area, the leopard. The young female lion lay down and seemed to enjoy her high vantage point! It was only when the lionnesses decided to move on that she jumped down from her tree.
We all felt excited to be able observe this intimite moment and social behaviour of this lion family! A great start of the morning!
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