One of the photos from a sequence of 14 photos over 6 seconds when a lion attacked a wildebeest
In the previous post I told about The Great Migration and we saw wildebeests walking and running along the plains, crossing a river and a dry riverbed too. At the riverbed behind some bushes were a lion lying in wait. Very still and not possible to spot, but we had seen her earlier and where waiting for the drama to unfold. The two images below are part of what was on my previous post and I am showing it again to remind you.
This is the setting for the drama. The wildebeests are crossing the dry river bed. In the background of the left photo you can see the wildebeests lining up for the crossing. they are coming straight against us after they have crossed the riverbed. The dust to the right on the second image is from the wildebeests crossing the riverbed and that is, where the lion will attack. The bushes behind the wildebeests are, where the lion is waiting for the right moment to launch her attack.
Among the bushes behind the wildebeests the lion is in wait. We were photographing the whole event a little bit away so we wouldn’t disturb the wildebeests with our car. But as you can see from our photos we are not that far from the beests. When we saw the lion start moving, Ping (our guide) drove the car in full speed straight into the mass of wildebeests and we (Jennifer and I) started shooting, while Eric was watching. Jennifer got a sequence of 14 photos captured during a period of six seconds, all of them brilliantly sharp. I didn’t succeed to get a single shot that was good! It is not easy to follow the event and shoot it, when you have just been driving fast through a herd of running wildebeests.
Below I have made a slide show of Jennifer’s dramatic shots. The blurriness is not because they are out of focus, but because all the dust that the running wildebeests and the fighting lion drove up. Click on the slide show to advance the photos. A couple of photos I have also made a close-up, so you can more clearly see what is happening.
Preparing the photos I relived those seconds again and it was really exciting! How did it go for the wildebeest? Well, you have to click on the photos and read the captions to see how it goes!
And thanks Jennifer for your lovely shots. They add a lot of drama to our stories.
Slideshow: The Lionkill by Jennifer
Click on right arrow to advance to next image
The first image. The lion is coming out of the bushes to the left and the wildebeests in front of the lion have stopped and started to turn around
The wildebeests start running frenetically in two directions and the lion is pursuing the closest wildebeest
This is a close-up of the second image
The lion is giving chase
The lion attacks and jumps on the back of a wildebeest, but it is a little bit difficult to see behind the bushes
The wildebeest turns left (probably to give Jennifer a better chance to capture the following images) and the lion is clinging on to the back of the beest
The wildebeest is running for his life
This is a close-up of the previous image
The lion succeeds to stop the wildebeest
The lion is trying to get his jaws around the neck of the wildebeest. The other beests nearby have turned around and are running a fast as possible. The wildebeests in the background have stopped but are so far away they feel safe
A close-up of the previous image
The wildebeest is down and the lion is trying to get on top of him
The wildebeest is trying to get away with the lion hanging on
A close-up of the previous image
The wildebeest succeeds in getting up with the lion holding the beest with both of his front legs and trying to get a bite at the neck
The wildebeest is still moving and the lion hangs on
The wildebeest turns again and tries to run and the lion looses a little bit of its grip and slides back to the back part of the beest
The wildebeest starts running. The lion hangs on. Unfortunately the rest of the drama took place behind the bushes, but THE WILDEBEEST GOT AWAY! We searched for a while but no wildebeest were left and the lion had to go back and hide in the bushes. But the wildebeest stopped its passage across the riverbed aware that the enemy was hiding somewhere near.
