2017/09 Part 3 Ngorongoro - Tue am Secretary bird |
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We stopped for breakfast at a picnic area, one of the few places on this trip where we could get out and walk 
about. We pooled our three breakfasts and all ended up with plenty of what we liked.
We had time there to look at the surrounding vegetation. The picnic area overlooks this swampy area, great wildlife habitat. The acacia trees grew much larger here, not great for shade but beautifully shaped.
Fig trees
grow in weird and wonderful shapes like this banyan. 
We also found this somewhat gaudy shrub, a candle plant, a type of senna so we didn’t snack 
on that one! 
Between there and the toilets we saw this dead buffalo, recently dead by the lack of smell. Ayoub thought it odd that no scavengers had found it; he wondered if it had died of anthrax, as that keeps scavengers away.
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Ngorongoro Woodlands (5.03) |
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Surprisingly, the concentration of vehicles and people didn’t keep the wildlife away from the picnic area. Ayoub had to warn me not to wander along what looked like a trail, as some of the wildlife is not 
friendly.
On the slope behind the toilets, a mixed herd of gazelles, Thomson’s and Grant’s, were grazing. We could see zebras and wildebeest and warthogs nearby, and an elephant came down to drink.
This buffalo was showing off its horns, a real deterrent to any predator; big game hunters used to reckon the Cape buffalo as one of the most dangerous animals to hunt, particularly if it was wounded.
As we were leaving the area we saw a large troop of baboons making their way across the picnic area, also ignoring vehicles and people. See the baby riding its mother.
By this time Ayoub had got used to Sandie’s erroneously calling them “bamboos”. He had a lot more trouble with her calling impalas “malibus” until I explained the Chevrolet connection. 
On the open plains we saw the large herds, mostly wildebeest and zebras, but sometimes 
with elephants and warthogs and gazelles in the mix.
Often there would be gatherings of birds in the waters beyond the herds, adding to the 
diversity.
We found more birds too, a fiscal shrike and a superb starling.
The twitchy nose belongs to an African hare; they are famous for their exceptionally long 
ears, but they are laid down in this picture as if the hare was expecting to run.
The kori bustard is a big bird but only half the size of an ostrich. The ostrich isn’t sitting down, just standing in long grass.
Up to now the only spotted hyenas we’d seen close up had been all business, looking for prey or carrion. This one must have already eaten as it was completely relaxed and not theleast concerned about us a few feet away.
The green reptile is a female agama lizard, similar to the more colourful male we’d seen in Amboseli.
What looked like one of Australia’s stone curlews turned out to be called a spotted thick knee in Africa.
We saw this solitary hartebeest, similar to the three we’d seen in Amboseli but at least we got a picture of the front end this time. Sometimes they form herds of thousands but we have yet to see that; this one may be a solitary hermit.
Then we saw this amazing character, the secretary bird, so called because it looks like it has quill pens tucked behind its ears. The bird hurries through the grass looking for snakes and lizards. When it finds one it stomps it with its big feet and then deals the death blow with its dagger-like beak. Looking at this bird I wondered why it took scientists so long to see the connection between dinosaurs and birds. 
Or why dinosaurs were thought to have dull and boring skin colours; this bird out-dresses Jurassic Park’s velociraptors.
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Ngorongoro Secrretary bird (5.47) |
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We came across a couple of hippos mostly submerged in a small pond, just their backs on show and they can hold their breath for a long time so we moved on. Ayoub said there was a hippo pool with many more and we headed in that direction