As I said in the first Savuti lion letter, the Savuti pride hunted at night.  We came upon them with a kill and Jackson said, 'Wow, they got a kudu!'.  Then when we go closer, he said, 'No, it is a wildebeest!'.  Then when one of the lions walked off with a definitely striped leg, we knew it was a zebra.  There was a lot of kidding with Jackson, from us and the other ranger, after that whenever he spotted game as to what it really was.

This young lion is all business with his leg of zebra.

As is this lioness with whatever morsel she has torn off.

Some of the best things happen at night and can't be photographed--either because they are too far away for the camera or they happen too fast.  One of our favorite sightings was like that.  It was fully dark and we were on our way back to camp for supper.  We saw a huge spotted eagle owl silhouetted against the moonlit sky on top of a dead palm trunk.  After admiring it for a while, we went a little further and Jackson heard a francolin (chicken-like small fowl) squawking.  He had told us that whenever you hear that at night, it means there is some action there, so we turned off road toward the noise, just in time to see in our headlights, the owl swoop down and get the francolin, who was running out in the open for some unknown reason.  As the owl took off with the francolin, it accidentally dropped it and then we saw why the bird was running in the first place.  Out came a beautiful serval (a gorgeous small cheetah like cat) and did a textbook pounce on the francolin and then strutted proudly back into the bushes, head high to keep the francolin from dragging.  We were all thrilled with seeing this happen--a first for everyone, including Jackson.  But no one recorded it in any way besides in the mind.

We were anxious to get back and tell the others about our great serval sighting when we came upon a lioness walking along ahead of us in the track.  We had to just go along behind her, at her pace.  Then she decided to lie down for a while, so we waited while she rested.  After a bit she got up again and walked on leisurely and we followed.

She got where she was headed--to join the family.  But our drive home was even more considerably hampered when we now saw the whole pride lying in the road.  After all, nobody wants to lie in the damp grass.  We watched them for a while but it was getting late and it was obvious that the lions weren't going anywhere, so we carefully went around them watching out for rocks, aardvark holes, and downed dead trees--hard to see in the headlights.  It took quite a distance to go by the whole group of a dozen lions spread out along the road.

So we had two good stories to tell around the campfire!  And we were forgiven for having been late for dinner, with such good reasons.