Facing a Lioness II

© Rudi van den Heever - LinRu Photography

We were keeping an eye on her where she was sleeping under a small camelthorn tree about 10 meters from the road, when she suddenly got up yawning...

The road is sunken on long stretches north of Nossob camp in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park and she was walking straight towards me... staring at me with those hazel eyes... I had to take the necessary precautions when she was less than 2 meters away from me, although she was as calm as a hindu cow... She was close... very close... I had to stop taking photos, pull the camera back into the vehicle (it couldn't focus anyway), close the window and start breathing...

She stepped into the road right next to my window and slowly walked north sniffing the air every now and then. From the look of her swollen teats she must have had very young cubs that still had to be introduced to the pride.

Almost exactly 15 minutes later she single-handedly took down a blue wildebeest without much ado. Unfortunately it was some 250 meters from the road and I could not get any worthwhile images from the kill. She ate for about half an hour, whereafter she once again disappeared over the horizon, seemingly on her way to feed her cubs...

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