Photos from Safari 2023

We were lucky enough to experience five different lion sightings while on safari in Kenya.

The first sighting was off in the distance. We noticed a small dust storm and some frantic Masai shepherds running to protect their cattle. As we looked closer, we could see the source of the squabble. It was a lion!

It appeared that the lion had its sights on a potential dinner, but the shepherds had a very different idea.

Our tour guide / van driver took off in the direction of the skirmish, and drove right up next to the shepherds to ask what was going on. Sure enough, the lion had attempted to attack a straggling member of the cattle, but the seemingly fearless shepherds were able to fend it off. They said the lion had run off into the nearby bushes, so we drove by the bushes slowly and tried to spot it.

No luck.

After several minutes of searching the bushes, we gave up and drove on.

About fifteen minutes later we noticed quite a few vehicles gathered around another set of trees and bushes. We drove over to see what was going on and realized that everyone was looking at a lion with a fresh kill.

The lion was fairly well hidden in the bushes and trees, but after watching for a while, we noticed that there were actually two lions! There was a mama lion and a cute little baby lion cub.

We spent quite a while watching watching the mama and the cub. Then we drove on.

When we came back through, we stopped again to see if anything was still going on. By this time several other lions had gathered under the bush to share in the banquet.

We were quite mesmerized by the whole process. I wished we would have stayed around to see the other lions come rolling in. I wonder if the gathered spectators noticed it happening, or if they were so fixated on the mama and cub (like we were) that the other lions were able to sneak up and seemingly just appear.

That thought caused me to look around and see if any other lions may be gathering. I didn’t see any lions, but just over the next hill was a pack of hyenas, eyes fixed on the lions—just waiting for banquet to be over so they could come and clean up the scraps.

Wild. 

Literally.

On our way out of the National Park we had our third lion sighting. Jodi pointed off into the distance at a mama warthog with her two little babies. They were just running along the creek like a happy little family.

Then we realized that we were not the only ones to notice this little family of warthogs. On the other side of our vehicle was a lion, fully fixated on the piglets. 

We put on our brakes, and the lion passed right in front of us, then kept going—never taking her eyes off of the family of warthogs.

Unfortunately we started driving off and I stopped recording, but right after I stopped recording, the lion took off in a full sprint towards the warthogs. The three pigs separated… and then there was two.

The little guy didn’t make it. Apparently lions like bacon as much as humans do…