African Lions!

 

A lioness takes shelter under a bush. I'm heading back to Kruger National Park to look for more lions. Come back soon to see what I find! In the meantime, enjoy some of my fav pics. 

🦁 🦁 🦁 🦁 🦁

A lioness stares off at the horizon while hunting the arid desert scrub of Samburu, Kenya.

In Samburu, lions hunt like leopards, using cover to ambush antelope in close quarters.

A pair of lions relax on their own on the Maasai Mara. Lions will spend time alone together for days to produce the next generation.

Peekaboo! A lioness uses a fallen log for cover while stalking impala.

A big male lion naps in a tree fort about 15 feet off the ground at Lake Nakuru. This park's lions are famous for climbing trees.

A lioness gets a drink of water at the river in Samburu, Kenya. Her cheek was badly gashed like the Joker with multiple bite and claw marks on her neck and body that suggested she recently fought another lion. They are so tough.

Nearly grown cubs hunt a riverbed during the heat of the day. These young males were probably evicted from their pride not long ago and are now on their own. But together they could make a powerful coalition.

A nomadic lion drags a zebra deeper into the woods to eat in privacy. I'm a big fan of the movie "The Ghost and the Darkness." But a scene where a lion carries a full-grown man into the scrub at a run struck me as fiction until I saw this lion drag 800 pounds of zebra away. You would stand no chance.

Everything is lion-colored in the dry season.

The tip of a restless lion's tail is all the betrays the enormous cat in the tall grass. I waited for hours for this beautiful lion to show herself but left disappointed. They sleep a lot!

This lion was more obliging. The nomadic lion ate his fill of the zebra he killed in the night and then slept away the morning in the shade of a tree next to a park road.

 

The lions in Samburu were huge. Or maybe I was just closer, ha. They have white eye rings that help them see at night.