A Bit More Action

The 4th day of our stay at Zimanga delivers where the previous day did not. We start with another game drive, again aiming to track down the reserve’s male lions. Almost immediately there’s a confirmed sighting, and we head to the specified location just as the sun rises and bathes the area in golden light. Zimanga has three relatively young males, brothers, the result of a swap for an older male to increase the pride’s genetic diversity. All three of these magnificent but still developing animals are present and correct.

That said, they don’t really deliver on the "bit more action". Ultimately, these are cats. Cats like lying down not doing much if they can get away with it, and the three males are obviously sufficiently relaxed and well fed that they don’t need to do much more. We get various shots of them lying down looking regal, and head off.

The alternative attraction is provided by the two male cheetahs. They have taken down a young zebra, and are busy stuffing as much of it as possible into themselves before leaving it to the scavengers. This is very much the "nature red in tooth and claw" bit of the safari.

What is interesting is the process reveals a surprising lack of problem-solving intelligence. The left flank and legs have been stripped, and the torso is already open. Both cheetahs are clearly very full, and you’d think that they would prioritise the high-value parts of what remains, before it’s time to leave the kill to others.

Nope, they crunch through the ribs to extract morsels of meat. They pick at the offal, before repeatedly remembering that they don’t like it. They work together to try and extract remaining fragments of meat on the left-hand flank. They don’t think of flipping the carcass over and eating the meat on its right side.

Once again I’m surprised by how relaxed cheetahs are around humans. Our guides allow us to get out of the jeeps and walk around, maintaining about a 3m minimum distance but not much more, and the cheetahs take little or no interest. Try that with a lion or tiger…

In the afternoon we visit the Lagoon Hide, a semi-submerged hide in the centre of a man-made lagoon, which is itself on one edge of a natural lake. This is an excellent location from which to observe water fowl. We watch various water fowl plodding around to find bits of food (although a small heron dives and takes a whole fish, which is impressive).

This one made me laugh. For some reason I’ve got the line "We’ll Walk Down the Avenue" from "Couple of Swells" going through my head…

Another good day’s shooting.