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MalaMala Diary Entry: 20 July 1998

The fork-tailed drongo is a bird commonly seen in the African bush. One of the most pugnacious birds around, it constantly fights with other birds. Lately many of them have taken to following vehicles around the bush, catching any insects which are flushed by their movement through the grass.

As the dry season progresses and water and food become ever more concentrated along the Sand River, so more of the plains game such as the Burchell's zebra arrive. Some groups of up to 50 zebra have been seen at certain drinking spots. These animals then attract the carnivores such as lions and leopards. This week the large Windmill pride were seen for the first time in some weeks, following a group of zebra in from the Kruger National Park. These zebra initially eluded the lions but later one was caught. The exact number of lions in the Windmill pride is not known, but thirteen were spotted around this kill, including three young males.

When these lions were found on the kill, they were seen chasing away some other lions, an adult male and at least two lionesses, all three of these well fed. It is not known if these lions had killed the zebra and were then chased off by the Windmill pride or whether they had simply gone to investigate the kill made by the Windmill pride. Whatever the case may be, the lions chased away from the kill - members of the Eyrefield pride and one of the four male lions which have now taken over the territory from the three Manyelethi males - continued to have a bad day. Later on that evening they tried unsuccessfully to steal a warthog kill from a young male leopard (the two-and-a-half-year-old son of the Newington female). Upon seeing the approaching lions, the leopard grabbed the warthog and climbed to the top of a large tree out of reach of the lions.

Other lion news on Mala Mala is that the takeover bid on the territory of the Manyelethi males continues. The prides which stand to fall under their influence (the Styx, Emsagwen, Marthly and Eyrefield prides) are still responding with understandable apprehension. Of these lion prides it is only probably the Eyrefield and Marthly prides which have cubs which could be killed by these lions - whenever a male lion takes over a territory it sets about killing off any cubs fathered by the previously dominant males and which are still dependent upon the females of the prides within their territories. If the females still have cubs dependent upon them they will not come into oestrus and the male lions will not be able to mate with them. Male lions which have taken over a territory realise that they too might be ousted at any time and so want to produce their own cubs as soon as possible - this then causes them to kill off any not yet independent cubs. With this threat hanging over them, lionesses within the range of these four lions are now wandering far and wide trying to avoid these males.