Giraffe kill - the lions feed on

After bringing down an adult giraffe during the night of the 25^th/26^th November, the six male lions that were at the carcass at the end of the day on Saturday 26^th were still there, as expected, at dawn on Sunday 27^th.  Their bellies were full and they were spending as much time resting as feeding.  

As the day heated up so they spent more and more time away from the kill and close to our waterhole, where they drank frequently or slept in the thick shade of the adjacent trees and bushes.  From the Lodge we had regular views of one or more drinking.  

During the early part of the morning large numbers of vultures began to fly in, mainly white-backed vultures but a few hooded vultures as well, settling in dead trees anything up to several hundred metres from the kill site:  there they sat, patiently waiting, but since there was always at least one lion at the carcass the vultures didn’t get a look in…… yet!

As evening fell, the lions drifted back to the carcass where some returned to eating.  By now all of the easily accessible meat had gone and so the lions had to tear back the skin from the lower neck, the legs and the back and use their carnassial side teeth to cut through connective tissue and tendons to get small scraps of muscle. 

It was clearly hard work and even in the cool of the evening and the night left the lions panting from the effort.  They made frequent trips to the waterhole to drink. 

 
At one stage, when it was almost dark and when all six lions were at or near the carcass, another adult giraffe approached the waterhole.  As soon as they detected this, four of the lions moved towards it in stalking mode:  after a tense few minutes the giraffe moved off, away from the lions, which slowly drifted back to the kill.