TV REVIEWS : NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ‘LIONS’ PREY ON PBS

A pride of lions sits patiently in the darkness. As a wildebeest herd speeds by, the big cats turn their heads as one, like spectators at a tennis match. Soon, there’ll be a feeding frenzy.

“Lions of the African Night” is yet another superb “National Geographic” special that reminds us of the beauty and brutality of the natural order of things. Produced, written and photographed by David and Carol Hughes, it airs at 8 tonight on Channels 28, 14, 24 and 50.

The Hugheses put more than three years into their film, which stars a pride of 30 lions in South Africa consisting of adult females and their cubs, at once charming and ferocious. The lions rest by day. But as the peach sky dissolves into night, they begin the hunt for food, stalking their prey like stealthy gorillas.

The lions do not occupy the entire program, an exquisite hour whose photography is such that viewers get even a remarkable insect’s-eye view of the African bush and a single tiny ant assumes significance. Beetles mate. A golden leaf frog deposits eggs along a blade of grass. Baboons snuggle in treetops. And roars and cries sound through the night, signifying another kill.

The predator’s ballad.