After leaving the Ngorongoro Crater we headed for the Serengeti through the Naabi Hill Gate. Around here we were fortunate to see "The Gathering" before the migration starts. Up to 1.6 or even 2 million wildebeest, 750,000 zebra and 300,000 gazelles follow the lush grass into the Masaai Mara in Kenya and back. A truly spectacular sight to see this many animals on the move. Unfortunately we were there a few weeks before it got underway.
The first selection of photos here are of some of the herbivores - plant eaters, food for the carnivores which are never far away.
More photos of the birds and animals in the Serengeti can be found here.
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| Wildebeest in huge numbers on the plains of the Southern Serengeti |
As mentioned above there are about 2 million animals which take part in the migration every year. On this particular day, we saw at least 1 million animals!
Look carefully at the photo of the wildebeest above and try to think of how many animals are in it. This photo, taken with the long telephoto lens, covers about 8° out of a complete 360° circle. The animals were at this density in all directions. Later in the day, we went to another place, where the photos of the dung beetles and hyena were taken. There the animals were at the same density all around too. One million animals in one day – definitely and our guide Suddy agreed with this figure too.
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| Grant's Gazelle |
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| Thompson's Gazelle |
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| Herd of impala with the dominant male keeping an eye on something. |
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| Male impala in a nearby bachelor herd. |
Impala live in herds of 20 or so animals. There will be a dominant male with a harem of breeding females and the young ones which he guards and rounds up to prevent them from wandering off. Male impala leave the breeding herd and hang out in bachelor herds where they spend most of the time lurking around the main herd. Within the bachelor herds there is also a dominant male also whose main aim is the take over his own harem.
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| Male impala, Lake Manze, Selous. January 19 2009 |
When a male from the bachelor herd feels strong enough to challenge for a breeding herd he will fight with the dominant male for up to two hours for supremacy. Whilst this is going on, the other males from the bachelor herd will move in and mate with any females in season! Talk about helping yourself whilst the boss is otherwise occupied.
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| Kirk's Dik Dik, the smallest of the antelope species |
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| Topi in the Western Corridor. |
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| Dung beetles |
With so many animals grazing on the grasslands there is plenty of waste which needs recycling. The dung beetles gather up dung, rolling it into balls then digging holes to bury it. They lay their eggs in the buried dung and when the eggs hatch the new beetles feed off it and recycle the minerals keeping the soil fertile. The ground was literally alive with moving balls of dung.
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| A bright, colourful lizard perfectly camouflaged. |
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| Zebras are born brown and white |
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| Hyrax, a small rodent like mammal. |
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The sausage tree. The seed pods are up to 15kg and
hang down below the leaf line |
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| Part of a herd of about 50 animals. |
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| Grumeti River crocodile |
The Grumeti River is one of two major rivers the migration crosses. Here we saw lots of crocodiles lying in wait for a massive attack as the animals cross the river. Some amazing scenes have been filmed of the crocs launching themselves at the wildebeest as they get close to the river. Youtube has plenty of these.
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| Heading for the safety of the river |
Hippos despite their appearance can be vicious towards each other and one gives them plenty of distance when they are out of the water. We found this one late in the afternoon as it decided to get back to the safety of the water.
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| Hippos resting, Grumeti River. |
Hippos have very sensitive skin and spend most of the day in water to stop getting sun burnt. They emerge late in the afternoon to feed and are back in the same pool by sunrise next morning. As they are herbivores then need to leave the water to feed on grass and can walk up to 15km each night to find good grazing. They have poor eyesight but do return along the same track to enter the pool where they left it. How do they manage this?
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| Hippo GPS |
The leading male leaves first and sprays dung on a favourite rock. Doing this every 100m or so whilst the others stop to have a good sniff, he marks out the path, which is different each night, so they can navigate back in the early hours of the morning when it is still dark. A bit like marking way points using GPS when traveling across the desert. We did see hippo marks like this but the photo here was taken on an earlier trip to Tanzania in the Ruaha National Park in 2009.
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| Classic Serengeti pose |
One of the highlights of any safari is to see at least one of the two great spotted cats, cheetah or leopard. We sped off across the southern plains of the Serengeti after a radio call. The reward for half an hour of being jolted around and hanging on tight was this sight! We were to spend the next hour and a half here clicking away.
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| She has spotted something in the distance. |
This female had seen a bush buck in the distance but it was a little far away to go hunting.
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| Female bush buck |
She then lay down again for some time before deciding to come down out of the tree and wander off along the road. Lots more photos!
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| Totally at ease with our Landrover metres away. |
She went the wrong way! About 200m up the road in the opposite direction was a small herd of bush buck. Plenty of cover to creep up on them; a nice tasty meal gone begging this time.
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| Small herd of bush buck. |
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| Female hyena. |
This female had young down the the den but we didn't even hear them.
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| Male hyena |
The ugliest, most horrible looking nasty little beasts you could ever hope to meet! Hyena are the classic scavengers and as the operate as packs they often steal kills off lion and other predators such as cheetah and leopard. These hyena were found near where the herds of wildebeest were gathering.
Finally, another highlight of the safari. We had seen many lion prides before but not a contented mother nursing her newly born cubs.
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| Two very small cubs having a feed. |
The mother has a tracking collar fitted so that the pride's whereabouts and activities can be monitored.
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| The pride |
I hope you have enjoyed coming on safari with us. If you have been on safari before you will understand how it gets to you and that you need to go again. Seeing large numbers of animals in their natural habitat did something to me and makes me never want to see animals caged up in a zoo ever again.
More photos of the birds and animals in the Serengeti can be found here.
Botswana is now on the "bucket list"!
