Lioness Keeps Watch, Grumeti Reserves, Serengeti National Park, Tanzania

I spotted this lioness in the tree from about 300 yards off through my binoculars. When we pulled up closer, we saw that she was in fact one of about 15 lions in a pride, which was laid up on a river bank for a rest after finishing a meal of a buffalo calf it had just taken. What happened next will surely stand as one of the most incredible sights I will ever witness. The herd of buffalo from which the calf was taken returned to the site where the pride lay, and proceeded to furiously chase the lions down the river bank for 20 minutes. The females, desperately trying to protect the cubs in the pride, some of which were only a year old, tempted death with a few close calls with a couple charging bulls that were enraged over the death of the calf. Eventually, the lions ran far enough away, and the buffaloes decided they had gotten their message across. The herd retreated, but the pride did not show themselves from deep within the long grass for more than an hour after the ordeal. It was quite unnerving to witness the lions be so emasculated by the buffaloes. Yet it was a spectacular display of nature's playing field, and how nothing is immune from threats in the wild.