Tranquillity reigned at Picnic Pan on the Kwatale Conservancy this week as some guests and I sat enjoying the sunset, but all that was shattered when the quiet evening air erupted into a cacophony of rapidly approaching roars.
A young male lion came galloping out of the last fading light of the day. He moved with poise, power, and determination – something was up. The knob-billed ducks we’d been watching as they paddled placidly on the pan scattered, took flight, and were gone. The evening was about to take on rather a different tone.
He was in good condition, a male with the scraggly beginnings of a mane on the verge of adulthood. He was claws and teeth and tightly coiled muscle moving briskly through a patch of stunted mopane trees towards us. We sat and watched, enrapt.
As he moved purposefully past us, without paying us the slightest attention, we realized that he wasn’t alone – more guttural vocalizations emanated from the bush behind him. In the world of big cats, this means politics.
Just then another appeared, a larger male this time. His mane was fuller and he was altogether more fearsome. He too trotted forward resolutely – he was not running from anything, he was running towards something.
Was this a fight of some kind? A territorial dispute? The continuing bellows of the two lions, and another set coming from the bush they’d come out of, made it clear that this was serious.
The two new arrivals skirted round the edge of the pan, furiously marking every bush in sight and roaring their lungs out. Soon they were joined by a third; roughly the same size and condition as the first. He joined them in their patrol of the circumference of the pan, marking and calling along with the others.
These were no enemies. They were allies. They were a triad, previously unseen in the area. And they were invading. There was no mistaking it: these three young males were intent on one thing and one thing only – they meant to claim a territory of their own. This territory.
They prowled and marked and called out their challenge to the world: “come and get us if you dare, we’re right here.” At one point there were answering calls from the East. One of the Kwatale Conservancy’s resident lions was on the line. Whoever it was, they did not see fit to put in an appearance – discretion is the better part of valour after all.
The three males made their way over to the opposite bank, alert all the while. They drank and lay down together on a slight rise in the ground, watching still and roaring intermittently. Their demeanour seemed to indicate that their challenge would not be met on this particular evening.
We watched them until the final afterglow of sunset faded to black, curious as much about these three interlopers themselves as we were about the consequences of their arrival. What would this mean for the resident lions? Would there be war? Would further areas change hands or would these three upstarts content themselves with a life of the margins? One thing was certain: these three were a force to be reckoned with. If they could hold on to their gains, they might make a very fine and a very fearsome coalition one day.
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