We witnessed an unbelievable and awesome display of a pride of lions hunting among a herd of Cape Buffalo when in South Africa two weeks ago.

We watched about six lionesses hunting a herd of Cape Buffalo. When we came upon them they had been doing this for over 12 hours according to our guide. We were slowly driving through the bush and the ground started to shake and there was a large rumbling. To our right we saw a herd of about 100 buffalo stampeding. The dust was flying - they ran about 100 yards and stopped. From behind them, around our side, came the lions, working their way around to the front of the herd. There they started them heading back the other way. They worked them back and forth. They were just like border collies working a herd of sheep. The goal is to eventually have one of the buffalo - an older one perhaps or a young one - get exhausted and fall behind. The buffalo are very protective and the few times we saw one buffalo get separated from the herd the entire herd quickly came to their side. The lions know that the buffalo can cause serious injury, and don't push their luck with them - our guide said that sometimes they do this for 36 hours until they are all exhausted and the lions just walk away. The lions, being preoccupied with their hunt, ignored us - as do most of the animals that are used to seeing people in safari vehicles. Several of the lions walked next to our vehicle - I could have reached over and touched them - if I wanted to lose my arm or perhaps become a substitute for the buffalo.

In spite of the last photo, we did not see any buffalo taken down by the lions.

All photos taken with a Canon 6D with the 100-400 version I lens.

Part of a series from my recent trip. See: http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-486870-1.html

Greg Sweeney , who leads several of these trips each year, has room in this trip next August for several more photographers. I highly recommend this trip - it is moderately priced and is designed for photographers - we only had six people on our trip! See: http://www.africawildsafaris.net/

We witnessed an unbelievable and awesome display of a pride of lions hunting among a herd of Cape Buffalo when in South Africa two weeks ago.

We watched about six lionesses hunting a herd of Cape Buffalo. When we came upon them they had been doing this for over 12 hours according to our guide. We were slowly driving through the bush and the ground started to shake and there was a large rumbling. To our right we saw a herd of about 100 buffalo stampeding. The dust was flying - they ran about 100 yards and stopped. From behind them, around our side, came the lions, working their way around to the front of the herd. There they started them heading back the other way. They worked them back and forth. They were just like border collies working a herd of sheep. The goal is to eventually have one of the buffalo - an older one perhaps or a young one - get exhausted and fall behind. The buffalo are very protective and the few times we saw one buffalo get separated from the herd the entire herd quickly came to their side. The lions know that the buffalo can cause serious injury, and don't push their luck with them - our guide said that sometimes they do this for 36 hours until they are all exhausted and the lions just walk away. The lions, being preoccupied with their hunt, ignored us - as do most of the animals that are used to seeing people in safari vehicles. Several of the lions walked next to our vehicle - I could have reached over and touched them - if I wanted to lose my arm or perhaps become a substitute for the buffalo.

In spite of the last photo, we did not see any buffalo taken down by the lions.

All photos taken with a Canon 6D with the 100-400 version I lens.

Part of a series from my recent trip. See: http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-486870-1.html

Greg Sweeney , who leads several of these trips each year, has room in this trip next August for several more photographers. I highly recommend this trip - it is moderately priced and is designed for photographers - we only had six people on our trip! See: http://www.africawildsafaris.net/