Whatever the arena, whenever weighing up an adversary, there is much to contemplate: speed, size, number, hunger and risk. When it goes awry it can be disastrous but also spectacular.
James Nampaso is no slouch when it comes to finding and indeed positioning perfectly for such a confrontation, but neither he nor his returning guest, Rose Brazel, was expecting this. Only certain lion prides target buffalo and the Moniko one rarely has such dishes on its menu. A couple of big falls and then submission favoured the charcoal ruminant with a sub-adult female getting projected over the horns of its combatant.
You would think that with this sort of battle royal, the drama would be over for the game drive, but not a bit of it.
Soon after a huge turf war broke out within the neighbouring Enkoyanai pride and yes, there was James again, right in line.
He’s quite good at this you know.
Not to be outdone, Simon Lomelo in Laikipia had quite the morning last week guiding Andrew and Susan Barrington.
They followed seven lions, five females and two males as they tried to knock down a huge breakfast.
They were initially unsuccessful, the buffalo smelling them many metres off, but finally they isolated a single female and tried every conceivable strategy to knock her to the ground. All were unsuccessful but some of the footage of the Laikipian buckaroo is remarkable.
Top work Simon, he’s quite good also.
