2017/09 Part 4 Serengeti - Wed pm Rhinos & Leopards |
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Dear All,
At the end of part 3 of this journal we had been visiting the Ngorongoro Crater and were now on our way to the Serengeti. We had made a stop at Oldupai Gorge and were taking a short cut from there to the park’s entrance. Ayoub, our guide in Tanzania, was keen to get to the gate quickly as entering the park involves much paperwork and the fewer before us in the queue the better.
Wednesday September 20th continuedt
This was open, flat country with widely spaced and spindly acacia trees, mixed with rocks and dust holes, very similar to Australia’s savannah country. For us, the track was similar to those leading to mines in the Aussie Outback, interesting driving in the dry, probably too interesting in the wet.
We’d heard that the Serengeti had experienced heavy rain a few days earlier. On the downside, some of the tracks in the park might be difficult, but the upside was that the smell of rain might cause some of the zebras and wildebeest to begin their migration back to the Serengeti from the Masai Mara.
We rejoined the main road into the park with its bonejarring washboard. At the entrance the parking area was crowded with safari vehicles and wandering tourists. Ayoub said we had at least a half hour to eat our packed lunch, and he pointed out a couple of buildings that sold drinks and souvenirs.
One of them had a dead-looking coffee machine. I asked for two lattes and paid in dollars. The attendant left and the coffee machine came to life; he’d started the generator. They were 
surprisingly good lattes.
We found a spot to eat in the shade and were joined by a half dozen superb starlings. I’ve shown them before in this journal but these pictures really show off the iridescent back and those eyes, willing us to drop our food.
Ayoub suggested that we stay in the southern part of the park for the rest of the day. The lodge is centrally placed so we could explore that part of the park the next day. 
We hadn’t yet seen either leopards or rhinos and the southern section would be our best chance for rhinos. He added that the chance was 
slim; few visitors get to see one.
We entered the park through the arch and soon turned off the main road into an area of large rocks and rocky hillocks; leopards sometimes sit on top where 
they can scan for prey. We didn’t see any but there were other things to keep us interested. Two white-headed vultures gazed out from a flat-topped acacia. 
An aloe showed off its red flowers against a brown landscape
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We were already familiar with the koji bustard but were surprised to find that the Serengeti has black-bellied bustards too.
A bigger surprise though was this lilac-breasted roller. When did you ever hear of any kind of lilac coloured bird? This one has a similar shape to a kingfisher and has turquoise-blue underparts.
Off on the horizon, giraffes were practicing their geometric skills.
And then Ayoub pointed to a distant hillside, thinly populated with large trees, 
“Rhino, maybe two rhinos.” It took a while for Sandie to see them, and even longer for me, but eventually we agreed that there were actually three of them, perhaps a cow and two young, not necessarily both hers. 
They were a long way away, so we were having to guess. Similarly, the photos are grainy, just good enough to confirm that they were rhinos.
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Serengeti Wednesday PM entrance & rhinos (5.47) |
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We know that these were black rhinos as the Serengeti has no white rhinos. The names are confusing as they have nothing to with colour: white rhinos have wide mouths for grazing while black rhinos have narrow mouths for browsing.
We’d hoped to see a rhino and we’d seen three! Part of that is due to luck of course, but most is due to Ayoub’s sharp eyesight and his knowing where to look.
After nearly an hour of rhino gazing, Ayoub heard on the radio that lions had been seen in a tree. 
Although most of Africa’s lions stay on the ground there are a few prides in the Serengeti that will climb trees, either to get away from bugs or to watch for prey.
After driving up and down scanning the trees we found no lions but we did find a 
leopard. This one was resting in a tree, occasionally moving its head to scan in the other direction, but otherwise motionless. We stayed watching for a little while but it was hard to see with the sun behind it. Moving on, we found the lions.
If these had been the lions that had been in the tree, they were there no longer. Instead, they were asleep in the long grass beneath a tree. For a while all we could see were ears and backs and f
licking tails but then one lioness got up to change position and I snapped that one glimpse.
And then we found another leopard, also in the branches of a tree but more difficult to see. Ayoub said that the leopard’s last kill was also in the tree, though I couldn’t see it.
We began making our way back towards the main road and the route to the 
lodge, but minutes later we were stalled by a gathering of birds crossing the road to drink. They were yellow throated sandgrouse, a hundred of them. It was all very orderly; each flock would land on the road and walk across into the muddy water. 
Eventually Ayoub had to slowly thread his way through the gathering.
There were more stops for birds and animals, a red necked spurfowl , some ostriches, and this group of baboons.
Look closely and you will see baby baboons in all the pictures.
We were running out of time as we had to be off the road by
7pm or we might get treated as poachers. But there was so much to see. We ignored or took distant pictures of elephants and more giraffes and the herds of wildebeest and zebra and buffalo. Then came 
a radio report of a leopard on the ground nearby and that could not be ignored.
The leopard came so close to the line of safari vehicles that it would have been easier to stroke it than take a picture. It was too 
close for my long lens to focus. It stayed on the road, perilously close to our wheels for a while, and then calmly stalked off into the long grass and disappeared.
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Serengeti leopards (5.50) |
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Now the schedule was even tighter and we were going to make no more stops. The light had almost gone anyway. Somewhere along the way we saw this lion though I have no memory of taking this single picture; it may have been a drive-by shooting.
Ayoub was rocketing along. He was also pretty pumped by all that we’d seen. He pointed out that Tano Safaris had lived up to its name. Tano in Swahili means five, and big game hunters used to talk about the “Big Five”, elephants, buffalo, lions, leopards, and rhinos. We had seen all of the Big Five in one afternoon. We were just happy to have seen three rhinos and three leopards.