Lions play games with a hapless duck

One of the snarling felines emerges from the fray with duck in mouth. Photo by Deon de Villiers

Today we had glorious morning light on day two of our photographic workshop. This was in sharp contrast to yesterday's afternoon shoot, which delivered only a short period of golden light that lit up two magnificent white rhinoceros bulls and a pair of snarling, mating lions that were being observed by two curious onlookers.

 

The beautiful lighting conditions had everyone grasping for their cameras within minutes of leaving the lodge, as we came upon five inquisitive and hungry lions walking towards our wetland. Having seen buffalo only minutes before on our driveway, we figured we might be in for a gruesome display (obviously not for the faint-hearted).

 

We followed the lions right into the wetland where they focused their attention not on the buffalo, but on a group of comb ducklings that were trying to break cover for the water with mother squabbling her "hurry up now" at full volume. Realising what was about to unfold right in front of us, we quickly upped our ISOs to deal with low-light conditions and high-paced action.

 

Within a flash a young male lion had a duckling in his powerful jaws. This action excited the other lions which started a fast and furious game of “cat and duck”, which included snarling, hissing and aggressive shows of dominance.

 

In the end the poor little duckling wasn’t even consumed, but left for scavengers such as water monitor lizards, or raptors.

 

We stuck with the lions for the rest of the morning as we knew not much would be likely to top an unusual sighting such as this. The energetic display by the felines provided a welcome change from their typically sleepy daytime behaviour.