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First published in 1990. In May, 1979, Christopher McBride and his family loaded up a Land Rover and, leaving Timbavati in South Africa behind, travelled over 2000 kilometers to the heart of the Kalahari wastes.
They set up a base camp in Savuti, Northern Botswana, where the lion is king. A mere 20 metres from the Savuti channel, a stretch of water teeming with crocodiles, catfish and pike, they constructed a grass and reed hut that was to be their home for nearly three years.
Rejecting the usual method of observing lions during sample periods, the McBrides chose instead to become nocturnal themselves and, by so-doing, enter fully into the lions' nightime kingdom, to witness first-hand their hunting and their play, their feasts and their famines; the whole complex ebb and flow of their lives – their LionTide.
In this remarkable book, Christopher McBride, author of The White Lions of the Timbavati and co-author of Living With Lions (2018), provides a dramatic record of his time with the night hunters of Savuti. This account of the ceaseless struggle between Africa's largest carnivore, the lion, and its prey, hurtles the reader into the dust-swirled world of the Savuti lion prides with all its uncertainty and sudden death.
Prologue: Savuti
1. New Beginnings
2. New Techniques
3. Lions and Buffalo - Our First Hunt
4. To Dart a Lion
5. Our Camp
6. Pelokgale
7. Through the Looking Glass
8. Lion Life
9. New Discoveries
10. The Elephant's Child
11. Teamwork and Tactics
12. The Time of the Hyena
Epilogue
Appendix: Tables
Bibliography
Christopher McBride has spent most of his life teaching, writing and researching in the wilderness. He has an MSc Degree in Natural Resource from Humboldt State University, California, a BA from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, and a Teaching Diploma from the Johannesburg College of Education. He lives with his wife Charlotte in McBrides' Camp, Kafue National Park, Zambia.
