Wounded lioness shows softer side

These touching photographs show a lioness adopting a helpless antelope calf - after she killed its mother.
The intimidating beast had just finished devouring a Ugandan Kob, and had the wounds to show for it, when its terrified child emerged.
Instead of making the defenceless infant her dessert, however, the merciful creature took pity on it and carried it away to safety.

Walk on the wild side: After killing and eating this antelope's mother, the lioness reacts to the baby kob's arrival with a roar of suspicion

One-sided meeting: The powerful predator crouches down on her haunches and looks ready to pounce on the terrified little creature

Hear me roar! The lioness tries to scare off the unsteady little calf with a deafening rumble

Please be my friend: The lonely, motherless kob refuses to run away from the intimidating sight

Photographer Adri De Visser, 50, captured this fascinating display of nature in its purest beauty at every stage.

 

The lioness first stares at the calf in shock, before roaring angrily at it to make it go away.
Finally, her maternal instincts take over, and after batting the quivering calf with a paw, she picks up the orphaned baby and carries it off like one of her own cubs.
Other tourists in the Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda, later reported seeing the calf running around unharmed, so its luck clearly held out.

Brazen: The lioness looks completely nonplussed when the offspring of her natural enemy begins nuzzling at her feet

Close encounter: The intimate shots were captured at Uganda's Queen Elizabeth National Park

Confused emotions: The pitying lioness gently pats at the innocent child of her prey from moments earlier

Mr De Visser said: 'I was told there were two lionesses close by feeding on a kill so I went to go take some wildlife pictures.

'When I got there, I saw the lionesses feeding on a Uganda kob's carcass.

'I followed them for a while and they went up a tree to rest from the sun.

'I was watching them when I heard a noise - it was the kob's fawn that had been hiding in the long grass.

Out of Africa: The fascinating pictures show the incredible workings of nature

Unfair fight: The larger creatures evidently decided she should protect the little antelope, despite them being natural enemies

Firm friends: She carries it off by the scruff of the neck, as with a cub, not by the front as she would a kill

  Photographer Adri De Visser

المصدر/ Daily Mail