Hippo Feast

Up until this morning the last couple of days have been a little quieter in terms of sightings and animal behavior. We had a fleeting glimpse of a male Leopard around Smelly crossing but sadly not long enough to get any shots or ID who he was as he soon moved into dense forest and despite trying to track where he may reappear he never did. Given the area it’s likely it may have been either the Ridge Male (father of Saba, Olive’s cub ) or Nkaiyoni. 

Later that day we also came across the Notch boys, who you guessed it were lying flat out in long grass. However, they did pop their heads up once or twice, just enough to ID that Ron, Notch 2, Caesar were there. Notch himself is still being illusive and and has not been seen for quite sometime now but is no doubt doing fine, but a shame that we have not managed to spend any time with him other than the first day in which we saw him for just a few moments before he also lay flay out, refusing to lift his head! 

Given that Maliaka is still in the same area we have made the most of this and again yesterday afternoon returned to find her with a kill in long grass which looked to be a male Thomson Gazelle. The cubs were there but almost impossible to see apart from the popping their heads up once or twice and at one point jumping up on the legs of the Gazelle.  So on the photography side it was a little disappointing but on the other hand it was great to see that she continues to hunt successfully.

On the way back from seeing Maliaka we spotted cars across the river, by now it was time for us to retreat back to camp, but with 30 minutes left we hot-footed it through the gate as we were keen to see what was causing such interest. As we are taking GPS logs of all lion sightings we just wanted to see if we had more lions to add to our log and indeed who these lions were. This proved to be a good plan as we came across 5 lionesses with a Hippo, and we think former members of the Olkiombo pride. Rather than having been killed by the Lionesses (which would be a tough job and almost impossible for 5 lioness) it looked as if the Hippo had died by natural causes and no doubt the lions had come across it. At this point they had not fed on the Hippo and were trying to open up the carcass.

So given what we had seen yesterday afternoon you can guess our plan for where we would head this morning was already sorted and we hoped that by this morning more lions, hopefully males and certainly Hyena would have found the carcass. Sure as ‘eggs are eggs’ this proved to be correct as as we rolled up first thing we saw the unmistakable shape of a large male lion and still at the carcass the 5 lioness. Although it was still virtually dark we knew straight away it was Grimace. The stench of the Hippo was quite putrid but this was not going to keep us from staying here. 

He coveted the carcass as he fed and looked like he must have been feeding for some time as he had a stomach the size of a tank and we wandered how he could possibly eat any more. The females looked like they had fed a little but likely this had been not long after we left them the evening prior. Every now and then the females tried to advance to the Hippo, but Grimace aggressively headed them away and they returned a few feet away watching as Grimace devoured more. Surrounding the lions and Hippo a clan of Hyena watched. Despite the fact that that there were 19 of the Hyena were still outnumbered in terms of strength by the lions and especially given the fact that a male was present they just they remained a distance away but knowing in time their opportunity would come. Six Jackals also trotted around the Hippo, with one or two gutsy jackal running the gauntlet and dashing into take a morsel of the Hippo and running off as Grimace growled, becoming agitated by the presence of the Jackals. 

Grimace fed for around 45 minutes before finally admitting defeat and retreating away to Croton thickets 1/3 KM away. This at least gave the Lionesses the opportunity to feed and although one lioness had already moved away the other 4 dived straight in. The departure of Grimace finally signaled an opportunity for the Hyena to test the females and try to move in. Initially the Hyena were wary as you would expect but as the clan started to gather together, whopping as they did their confidence increased and so they started to advance to the lionesses. The lionesses growled and snarled and lashed out at the Hyena but as more Hyena appeared and the numbers increased. One lioness left the kill, leaving just three Lioness at the kill.

So the balance between the Hyena and Lion started to shift and so to the dynamics at the kill. The balance of power had changed now in favour of the Hyena. Realizing that the numbers of Hyena were increasing the remaining Lionesses started to become less aggressive and this gave the opportunity for the Hyena to move in, but not without some confrontation and lots of vocalising, snarling and rowing from both Hyena and Lion as both species started to feed together. Although this has been seen before it is certainly not a common occurrence to see the two species tolerating each other at a kill. So rather than retreating the lionesses remained, continuing to feed, along with the Hyena for around 30 minutes or so after which the Lionesses moved off with full stomachs and also fit to burst. 

As the lions retreated the remainder of the less dominant Hyena darted in and fed. The scene was intense as the Hyena’s whopped and vocalised with excitement as if all their Christmas’s had come at once. They squabbled and fought over the most nutritious parts of the Hippo, although their numbers were large it was clear that it would take some time to devour the animal. 

By now we had been at the sighting for around 3 hours and it had been so interesting to see so much behavior, especially the interaction between the two species. It was the first time we had seen lions feeding on a Hippo and the first time we had seen the two species share a kill. Although the light was rather poor we still managed a few good shots. It was an incredible morning and we knew how lucky we were to see such a sight and had certainly made up for a quiet few days for sure.