Wild Adventures: New males quite literally bump into the Rekero Pride

Still catching up on the last few days the next instalment comes from our last morning on the 'Narok side' on the 21st October and was certainly an action packed one. Quite apt given this is our 100th post in our blog! In fact the excitement started the evening prior when we had the who pride literally right opposite the camp we were staying in that night. Roaring all together as a pride, as we shone the torch across the Talek river you could just make them out through the dark but clear night. The sounds were truly amazing and the roars bringing goosebumps as they continued to vocalise well into the night.

Next morning we picked up the roars from the pride again, having moved a little further up onto the plains and this certainly gave us a good head start in locating them. Sure enough they had moved only about 500 metres away from their location the evening before and were mobile when we found them. The subs and cubs stopping to play every now and then. Their bellies still full from the gorging on wildebeest in the croton two days prior.

As they continued to move one of the lioness caught sight of some Zebra in the distance and she soon went into stalking mode, and was soon joined by one or two others from the pride, including one of the male subs. However, it was not long until the zebra caught sight of the hunting party and their attempts to hunt had been foiled. As they started to track back to the rest of the pride the sub male soon turned his attention to a nearby Hippo, still out grazing from his night time foray. Clearly this chap was about to try and 'bite more than he could chew'. He would slowly move forward to the Hippo and then would quickly jump back every time the Hippo turned its head and grunted at him. The sub would them try and move in again when he turned his head back. This quite comical interaction continued for around 5 minutes before the Hippo had clearly had enough and ran back to the river, not before he gave one last charge to the male lion finally making him retreat back the rest of the pride who all seemed to look on with a degree of disapproval at his antics. It certainly seems as if this sub male has inherited some of the 'Hippo hunting genes' from his Notch coalition 'fathers' (which ever one it may be that sired this male!)

The pride the settled deep into a croton and it looked as if they were hauled up here for the morning and no doubt the rest of the day. How wrong we were! Andy then cast his eye toward the Talek river and caught sight of another two males, just a few hundred metres from where we were sat with the pride. We quickly went over to check who these guys were as they certainly we not from the Rekero Pride. We knew that there had reportedly been another young male (aged 3.5 years and called 'Kijana) who had apparently some association with the pride and was from Paradise pride but here we had 2 young males, who looked to be 3-3.5 years old, one with quite distinct black marks (looking like an injury) on the left side of his face. They tracked into the bed of the Talek and after a brief confrontation with some buffalo moved with haste back up the river bank and they were headed right for the where the Rekero pride were. They quite confidently moved through the croton and out the other side, right into the line of sight on the Rekero Pride, who by now were less than 50 feet away.

At this point one of the male subs from the Rekero pride saw them and his facial expression turned instantly, his eyes fixed with absolute concentration. After hesitating for a very brief moment all hell then broke lose. The 2 year old male subs, then followed by the same aged female subs jumped up and ran at the two other males. The males retreated, almost running into the Buffalo again and the Hippo that had not long had the encounter with the Rekero male. The adult females, followed by the 12 month old cubs (who didn't seem to have a clue what was happening!) followed the chase led by the subs of the Rekero Group. The two males then became split, one escaping back down into the river whilst the other male was continued to be chased by the pride. The pride stopped for a moment and started to assert their pride territory and dominance with a succession of roars while the male being chased paused for a moment to catch his breath. Just as we though the chase was going to stop it then commenced again and 3 of the subs continued to chase the male down into the river and up over the other side and then totally out of sight. By this point the adult females had relented in the chase and remained with the two younger cubs (12 months old). The two males who had literally bumped into the pride were now at least 1.5km apart. We lost sight of the action but stayed put at the edge of the river bank, waiting to see if the subs would return and give up their ferocious chase and eventually some 10 minutes later three tired subs returned back the rest of the pride clearly having been satisfied that they had rid of the 'intruder'. They had exerted alot of energy during the chase but for some time the whole pride remained tense and showed aggression to each other, the lions had become totally charged up for sure and clearly had a job to contain this!

The question we wanted to know the answer to was who were these two males?! We discussed between us as to whether it could have been Joys boys (who we have not seen ourselves) and had also asked our friend Jackson who was also at the sighting as to whether it was but he seemed to think not, a sentiment also shared by some others. Whilst other guides seemed to think they were indeed her offspring. So the question of who they are remained split between guides on one camp the two males from the Paradise pride and in the other 'Joys boys'. However, it seemed more likely they they were indeed the 'ex' Paradise males given there age, but to our knowledge unlikely to have been Kijana given that our guide contacts had said Kijana almost totally lacked any mane whereas these young chaps had a normal sized mane for their age. If they were indeed from Paradise it was likely they too were offspring from the Notch coalition

We had lost sight of one of the males who had been chased but returned back to the area where we had first seen them and to where the other male had ran to and there we found him again. He sat there looking nervous and displaced as you would expect, intermittently making soft contact calls in the hope he could be reunited with the other male that had been chased some distance away. Just a few moments later he then moved off and out of sight but in the approximate direction of where the other male seemed to have been chased of to. We really hoped that they would be reunited as two males of this age were certainly vulnerable, especially given they were still in the core of the Rekero Pride territory.

For sure it had been an action packed morning, we had struggled to capture any of the chase through stills as it had just been too frantic and happening very fast as the lions ran with gusto through the croton. It was not the time to follow too close as there was enough tension for the lions to be dealing with let alone a charge of cars behind them, but it was fascinating behaviour to see and although we soon had to leave for the 1.5 hour drive to the Mara Triangle we would be following the next chapter as the story of the two males unfolds.

Soon after we left this part of the Mara for the last two nights of our trip in the Mara Triangle where we were keen to find out what the lions on this side were up to.......

Rekero Subs first thing in the morning