Queen Elizabeth National Park

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In the morning, I left one national park for another to observe another type of wildlife. In addition to having the usual type of animal attractions found in other parks -- elephants, giraffes, hippos, birds, buffalo, lions, etc -- what makes the Queen Elizabeth National Park so unique is that in the southern portion of the park, it is home to tree climbing lions, which is supposed to be a rare phenomena, to be found in only two or three places in the world.



My driver/guide and I spent about three hours driving around, looking for the lions. Instead of looking toward the plains, you spend all your time looking up in trees, hoping for that rare sighting, all the while neglecting all the other animals. At the end of the drive, we had resolved that today wasn't going to be one of those days where we got a glimpse of one, so decided to continue northbound to my lodge, which was still a few hours away. And, just as we had given up hope, near the exit of the park was a lion in a tree. Things happened so quickly that I had only enough time to grab for my cell phone to take two pictures before he jumped out of the tree. I got to see the main attraction.



Afterwards, my driver told me that he and the tourists he was driving around the day before had seen three lions lounging together on a tree branch. I was to meet other tourists who were also lucky enough to see this as well. As much as I would have loved to have seen it, I was just as happy to see the one, as other cars arrived moments too late to the tree to see a lion, let alone a lion in the tree. It's all about being lucky with the timing.

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Photos

Ugandan countryside
What I woke up to the day after the gorilla trek

Lion in the tree (pic #1)
Seen in the southern portion of the Queen Elizabeth National Park

Lion in the tree (pic #2)
Seen in the southern portion of the Queen Elizabeth National Park