Lions do rather get in the way. There we were, off to do some serious birding in the Luangwa Valley in Zambia when a colleague told us via radio that there were lions about. The first that had been seen for more than a week. It was one of those little tests that the Valley throws at you every now and then: just how hard-core are you?

Do we rush towards the lions or do we carry on looking for small brown birds? As we considered the matter there was a small voice from the back of the vehicle: “I’ve never seen a lion before.” That made everybody’s mind up, and 20 minutes later we were there examining a late buffalo, one that had been eating the sweet rain-freshened grass of the Valley just 24 hours earlier.

When the kill is still warm lions are pretty single-minded about feeding, not least because it’ll be two or three days since they last did so: it’s all gobbing and snarling and slashing at each other with well-armed paws; lions are imprecise about dominance hierarchies unless they’re pride males.

But by the time we got there the lions were going back for fourth and fifth helpings and were inclined to be jolly and relaxed. There were two cubs, three males too young to have started their manes yet, and seven adult females. One of these females got up rather languidly and slouched in for another bite, reaching to the carcass over one of the young feeding males: he rolled onto his back and clapped two vast soft paws onto her in a playful pouncing embrace. She responded by half rolling over him and rubbing her face over his, bloody though both were.

You can call it interaction, you can call it play-behaviour, you can even call it love… but whatever you call it, it was clear that if you happened to be a lion and a member of this bloody-faced round-bellied pride, God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world.

• I was travelling with Wildlife Worldwide. More trips https://wildlifeworldwide.cmail20.com/t/y-e-xididdd-thukydkiuh-r/