2017/09 Part 3 Ngorongoro - Tue am Calling lioness |
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Ayoub had told us that our permits to enter the crater were good for one entry only, so we’d be taking a packed lunch. If we wanted to see the animals’ morning activity, and we did, then we should also take a packed breakfast and be ready to leave at 6 am.
Tuesday September 19th
With coffee and packed breakfasts and lunches we were off on time; it was still dark and a crisp morning. The entry gate opens at about sunrise and the exit gate, on a different road, closes at sunset. Outside those times anyone in the crater might be considered to be a poacher.
We followed a steep gravel road down into the crater. Our first viewpoint showed us a large elephant and an acacia tree festooned with weaver bird nests. About ten miles distant was the opposite crater wall; the mist was clearing and it looked like we were going to have a good day.
We were crossing a sloping open area when Ayoub pointed further down into the crater at a distant pixel and said “lioness”. Sure enough we eventually could see the lioness heading towards us and as we got closer we could hear her too; a repetitive short roar. Ayoub thought that she was calling to other 
lions, possibly to let them know there had been a kill. She passed a foot behind our back bumper, ignoring us and the dozen or so other vehicles that were now surrounding us. She sat down but continued calling.
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Ngorongoro Tuesday AM Calling lioness (5.58) |
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Ayoub had been busily scanning the crater wall above us and he pointed to another lioness 
and a group of cubs. He thought it was possible that some of the cubs might belong to the calling lioness. There was a lot of cover, so we kept losing them. She came about halfway down and stood there in the bush, almost invisible except when she moved; the cubs were safely out of sight.
She seemed reluctant to bring the cubs all the way down to the line of vehicles. Eventually she led the cubs, at 
least four, back up the hill and they all disappeared into the bush. The calling lioness gave up and mooched back the way she’d come.
Up to now we seemed to have had little impact on the animals in the parks, but this time it was likely that we, collectively, had been the cause of the cubs missing 
a meal.
Ngorongoro’s large animals looked to be much the same as we had seen in Amboseli: elephants, lions, wildebeest , zebra, buffalo, baboons. But the birds that morning were quite different. Ayoub rattled off the names as we saw them but of course we promptly forgot and we’ve had to pore through pictures to guess at what they are.
We think the raptor
is a martial eagle, possibly immature. The cute little bird on the branch amongst the thorns 
of a whistling acacia is a winding cisticola and the chicken-like bird is a Hildebrandt’s francolin. Who picks these names? The young bird, also amongst those fearsome thorns, we weren’t able to identify. [Bulbul says Elvira]
These helmeted guineafowl we were familiar with. We’d seen a few in Australia, escapees from 
someone’s farm most likely.
The guineafowl gather in large flocks, forming complex and confusing patterns just like the zebras do.