The next morning, we were the first to enter the park and immediately hurried to the spot where the lioness had abandoned the giraffe remains. It turned out the lioness and her two adolescents had already had a snack and weren’t in the mood to pose. She was leading her cubs into the riverside thickets, lashing her flanks with an irritated tail. Good thing we made the effort to get up early, I managed to take a few shots of the cubs in the morning light. They didn’t share their mother’s mood and nuzzled each other — and her — quite calmly.

Skipping ahead, I’ll say that by afternoon the lioness’s mood had changed, and she stopped reacting to vehicles. As we were leaving the park, she was lounging by the giraffe carcass, paying no attention to the cars. At one point she even moved into the shade of my vehicle and lay right against the rear wheels.

The adult cat wore a radio collar, so I didn’t photograph her, but I did manage a few extra frames of the cubs.

On our way to the more remote parts of the park — known hunting grounds with suitable soil and terrain — we turned toward the river. Here the vegetation gives shelter to smaller animals that are harder to find elsewhere. Right by the road, a red bush squirrel was foraging on a fallen tree. Its fiery coat contrasted so strongly with the deep green that it was impossible to miss. The pretty creature tore at the rotting wood, showering crumbs over its fur, completely unconcerned by our presence.

Somewhere along the way we startled a great egret as it stalked through sun-speared grass.

In another spot, scaring me half to death, a giant pale owl lifted off silently from a branch above my head. Its hallmark is pink eyelids, which give it a slightly sickly look. Unfortunately I only managed a “record shot,” but now I want a proper photo of this bird.

After a detour to the river, we returned to the savannah to look for predators. I spotted the vultures first, and soon the wind carried the stench of rotting meat. Right beside the track lay a mauled young giraffe. Suddenly I noticed movement in the bushes — a lioness was hiding in the thorny acacia scrub, and tiny cubs were bouncing at her feet like little balls!

With cubs that small, the lioness was especially cautious. Two males were roaming nearby — we could tell from their tracks. The lioness didn’t want to risk the little ones. We waited a long time to see if she would return to the kill, but eventually realized she wouldn’t come out while we were there. We decided to move on and try again later, giving her time to settle.

I was struck that this was the second lone lioness to bring down a giraffe. Yes, they were young giraffes, but even so they wouldn’t be easy prey because of their size — each as big as a large antelope already. Patrick pointed out that both giraffes were males and explained that lionesses target them when hunting. According to him, the cats attack and try to wound young bulls in the groin area, inducing pain shock and heavy bleeding. I don’t know how true that is since I haven’t witnessed a hunt yet, but I’m filing that information away.

In any case, we moved on — scanning for tracks, sniffing the air, peering and listening. When the hours came when predators settle down for their daytime rest, we turned back to the river. And then we got very lucky. We found a large group of giraffes split by a stream. Part of the herd had waded across; the rest were still deciding what to do. Among the laggards were pregnant females who weren’t eager to step into water where crocodiles were herding fish in the shallows.

Tanzania has only one giraffe subspecies — Giraffa camelopardalis tippelskirchi, the Masai giraffe. It’s the largest subspecies, distinguished by multi-rayed patches. Ever since I was little and leafed through "The Life of Animals", I always singled out the Masai giraffe in those plates, with its beautiful, unique pattern — like snowflakes or stylized flowers on the hide.

The giraffes turned out to be slow decision-makers, so we had to be patient and wait for their final choice. To be honest, I liked the scene so much that waiting was easy — especially when the senior bull decided to teach a younger one the art of fighting.

I’d never given much thought to giraffe family life, so I didn’t know adult males could take such part in training the young. Giraffes fight in a fascinating way, and I’d long dreamed of seeing it with my own eyes. Of course, this was just a lesson, far from the real thing, but good enough for a start. The two took turns making smooth circular swings, bending their necks and aiming their ossicones at the sparring partner. When that young bull grows up, he’ll strike full force, so much so that the hair on the ossicone tips will wear off (by the way, the presence of hair on the tips is an easy way to tell females from males).

Right about then, one unpleasant character latched onto our tail. Guides form a very tight-knit community — everyone knows everyone, there’s a communications system and unwritten rules. Mutual assistance is practically law. And even in Swahili they use code words for animals so tourists can’t pick out species names and pester guides unnecessarily. The word “kwanza” that has come to mean the Big Five pops up constantly.

The thing is, most tourists come for just a day — especially those flying in from Zanzibar — and everyone wants to see the Big Five. Guides are under heavy pressure to find the entire "kwanza" as quickly as possible. Not all guides have the needed experience, and not all follow the rules. The result is often not just a massive cluster of vehicles in one place, but also undue pressure on the animals.

This time, a less experienced, less successful guide decided to latch onto a more seasoned one. It annoyed me greatly, because it quickly became clear the fellow behaved noisily and aggressively, scaring the animals. In a half-empty park, I had the luxury of staying put and photographing calm wildlife, and this guy was ruining all my plans.

First, he spooked a pair of hippos ambling along the bank.

His next victims were a female elephant and her calf. We found the young mother and stopped so she could calmly lead the little one out of the thickets, when suddenly we heard the roar of a vehicle barreling toward us. The elephant became nervous, and when the car screeched up, the young mother started threatening the intruders, head held high and trumpeting sharply. At one point, this guide pushed the elephant closer to us, and I felt extremely uncomfortable being that near a nervous elephant!

We stayed put so as not to add chaos to the scene, which allowed the elephant to choose an escape route. By now I was thoroughly irritated. We decided to shake off this unpleasant shadow. Picking the right stretch of road, we sped ahead, startling a group of zebras with foals.

In the afternoon we decided to revisit the lioness with the tiny cubs. As we approached the spot where we’d explored her hunting ground in solitude that morning, it became clear the situation had worsened. The road was chewed up with tire tracks, and a line of vehicles snaked toward the giraffe remains. Naively, I’d hoped the lioness would have had time to calm down!

It was too late to turn around, so we joined the queue. I had no hope of seeing the cat anymore. After nosing around near the giraffe, we widened our loop to shake the crowd. Suddenly, out of the tangle of thorny acacias, a distressed lioness peeked out.

She even stepped into the open for a few moments, assessing the situation. Unfortunately, the other vehicles spotted her quickly, and she retreated just as fast. Peering into the lattice of branches, I made out a tiny cub beside its mother, but it was obvious there was nothing to do there. We broke away from the crowd and headed back, as more and more cars crawled toward us.

As I learned the next day, the lioness was forced to abandon most of the giraffe and lead her cubs away. I was very upset — her effort to bring down a giraffe had gone to waste. With cubs that small, that’s a significant loss for a mother.

As I wrote earlier, later on we did get time with another lion family, and overall the day turned out well — but it was my first real brush with the realities of African safari caused by other vehicles, and it gave me plenty to think about.

TO BE CONTINUED...