There are some days where Africa just puts on a show for you and this morning was one of them! As I got to the vehicle and the guests were loading in for the morning safari, Solly (my tracker) told me that the lions had been found. Without saying anything to the guests about this we hit the road. We found a rhino and a small herd of elephant before slowly making our way towards where the lions were lying.

Before I got a chance to call myself into the lion sighting one of the rangers found the wild dogs which were about 500 metres north of where the lions were. My guests had been lucky enough to see lion on their trip and I thought that it would be great to show them the second most endangered mammal in Africa. As we joined the sighting the dogs got on the move and started heading straight towards the Southern Pride and the Kruger males. The gap between these two epic predators was closing and as the dogs ran through a drainage line and to the top of the hill they came face to face with the lions.

The minute they saw the giant cats, the dogs turned tail and ran as fast as they could in the opposite direction, the lions did the exact opposite and hit full speed chasing after the dogs. Predators have a hate relationship which links back to competition for food. Any predator that is larger than another predator will generally chase that animal away and in some cases kills its competition. The Southern Pride is already responsible for killing a pup from this pack of wild dogs.

Positioning ourselves with front row seats for the action, the dogs came screaming past our vehicle with the lions in tow and as the lionesses reached the top of the hill a buffalo broke cover changing the target of the lions charge and quickly went off in pursuit of a meal. They were not successful in pulling down this buffalo but that evening they managed to kill a wildebeest.

On the way back we again met up with the small family of elephants we had seen earlier that morning. The baby was suckling from mom and the young bull was testing Solly’s resolve on the trackers seat. We then left the comfort of the vehicle for a bush walk back to Little Bush Camp and we were fortunate to find 6 rhino grazing away while we sat quietly on a termite mound and watched. What a brilliant ending to an amazing morning!