Tranquil morning drive unfolds into incredible lion sighting

One early morning in March we were leaving Satara heading to Berg en Dal for our last night in the Kruger National Park. We left Satara the moment the gates opened at 5.30am  and decided to take a leisurely drive down the H1-4. We love morning drives, smelling the fresh morning air and enjoying the openness and freedom of the bush. After an hour and a half’s drive, we took a small path down to Nkaya Pan to stop for a cup of coffee. After few minutes of watching some Blacksmith Lapwings and Egyptian Geese enjoying the little water left in the pan we decided to return to the main road. As we joined the H1-4 again we saw three cars standing on the right side of the road, they were not there when we turned off to the pan, so we went to investigate.

The people in the cars in front of us pointed to the right and that’s when we saw the rear end of a lion sticking out of a hole. We realised that the lion was trying to pull something from the hole, we just did not know what poor animal was inside. We immediately started filming this incredible scene and heard the sounds of a warthog squirming and screaming. The lion, by then we could see it was a male, had the upper hand and managed to pull the warthog from its burrow and killed it. As this episode unfolded the three cars at the sighting quadrupled to twelve cars with everyone trying to get a glimpse of the action.

The lion kept the warthog in a death grip for more than 5 minutes before letting it go. Luckily for us, the game viewers, the lion picked up its kill and carried it across the road before he started munching his breakfast. No app or sightings board was going to help us find such a unique sighting, once again pure luck was on our side and nature showed us why she is so raw and beautiful. Watch how it happened below!