Ramblings from the bush & beyond
Ramblings from the bush & beyond
Was this our most well-rounded safari yet?
Our whirlwind 8-night safari to Kenya and Tanzania in late February delivered the Great Migration and more! More than just seeing a huge abundance of nature’s herbivores and predators we were treated to many really special scenes of nature in action.
Our top sightings included (in order of appearance):
1. Leopard exploding through the bush to kill a young Water Buck in Lake Nakuru
2. Billowing hot springs and thousands of pink Flamingoes at Lake Bogoria
3. Spectacle of hundreds of thousands of White Storks at Lake Ndutu
4. Huge male tusker (Bull Elephant with large tusks) driving away 3 Cheetah
5. New-born Wildebeest struggling with its placenta then taking its first steps
6. Golden Jackals howling and driving 3 Cheetahs off their kill
7. 3 kills in 30 minutes by a coalition of 3 Cheetahs (including a head-on chase!)
8. Lion cubs sparring at sundown
9. Pride of 10 skittish nomadic Lions in unfamiliar territory in Loliondo
10. Mating pair of Leopard, with a Zebra kill stashed up in a tree
There was more – scenes of life and death, of order and chaos and of struggle and of natural beauty that are what make the African wilderness so captivating.
– Not far from the Wildebeest taking its first steps was another fawn on the verge of starvation, bleating pitifully for the mother it had been separated from in the commotion of the migration and who, the odds were, would not find again in time
– On the shores of Lake Masek was a graveyard of Wildebeest bones where thousands had gotten hopelessly mired in the mud and perished between the water they needed to quench their thirst and the dry land they needed to return to in order to survive
– Egyptian Geese (with goslings) squabbling noisily amid a flurry of wings and feathers in a territorial dispute in a small lake in Loliondo
– A den of around 11 Hyena included several cubs playing who, in spite of their young age, were already exerting dominance over the low ranking adults assigned to watch over them
– A full, 180-degree rainbow (with a partial double rainbow) that stretched in a perfect arc from land, through the sky and back down to land again
– A Giraffe perfectly silhouetted against the setting sun during our last sunset of the safari
And, of course, we were well taken care of throughout the safari – the camps were comfortable, the food was hearty and the guiding was particularly good, all well overseen by Peter, William and Sammy at Loldia House and Emmanuel, Hamish, Babu and Yahawa at Serengeti Safari Camp and Loliondo Nduara.
We’ve posted a selection of photos from this safari in our gallery.
And, for those so inclined, here is a tally of our sightings by the numbers:
-30 Lions
-3 Leopards (1 kill)
-7 Cheetahs (3 kills)
-2 rare Striped Hyena plus more Spotted Hyena than we were able to count
-7 Rhinos (5 White, 2 Black)
-Easily 100 Ostrich
-Thousands of Zebra and Thomson’s Gazelle
-Countless Wildebeest
-Countless White Stork
Once again, we’re left with the question... when will we return again to Africa...
Sunday, May 2, 2010