Our third all day game drive in the Serengeti started out pretty slow but then everything happened at once. Our first sighting was this leopard in a tree.

We watched her for a while but it looked like she was taking a long nap. Of course the question had to come up on how the guide knew it was a female. The answer was that a male would never be able to lay that way on a branch. Duh!

Next there was a radio sighting of a cheetah. When we first arrived there were vultures circling around the cheetah. Apparently the cheetah had killed a bird and had started to eat it when the vultures arrived making their screeching noise. Our guide said that when this happens the cheetah will abandon the kill and the vultures will take over. The cheetah clearly had blood on her face.

Next we moved on to a lion that had stolen a dead Thompson gazelle from another animal. When we first arrived he had the gazelle in his mouth. We followed him in the jeep until he finally found shade under a tree and decided that it was time for lunch.

We continued to watch this lion eat his kill. He was licking the skin and we asked our guide why. The answer was that it softens up the skin so he can tear into it easier. We were so close to this lion that we could hear the bones cracking as the lion tried to eat the gazelle.

Our next adventure was a whole bunch of lions in a tree. Like 7 in the tree and 2 on the ground.

We left these sleepy lions and returned to see what the leopard was up to. She had moved to a lower branch but was still enjoying her nap. The most annoying thing occurred while we were watching the leopard. The accepted form of communication when watching animals is a whisper. They can be spooked very easily. In front of our jeep was a Chinese 20 something boy standing on the top of his jeep doing a selfie with the leopard along with a running commentary in Chinese for his instagram account. He wasn’t happy with his first try so he had to re-record the whole thing talking at the top of his lungs. It was so unbelievably rude. I felt so sorry for the guide/driver who was sitting in the jeep. He had to be mortified.

Back to our camp for another wonderful dinner and hilarious stories told by Josh and our drivers while sitting around the campfire as the sun set. Can’t get much more perfect than this.