Tanzania 2015 - Serengeti, Day 2

Morning Game Drive - Thursday, 6 August 2015

We left camp at 6 am on our game drive. David was our guide.

We saw many elephants close to our camp. Some of us heard the elephants in the morning. We watched as the night became twilight.

As dawn spread her rosy fingers, we spotted topi, zebras and a giraffe.

We saw more zebras, a kori bustard and a black-bellied bustard, but the male does not have a black belly. The zebras crossed the road in a long line ahead of the rover, a few wildebeest were included. Most of the wildebeest had left the park in the great migration. We only saw four wildebeest in serengeti.

We came across a lone lion in the tall grass. A lion walking under an acacia tree is Africa.

It seems so peaceful and quiet when looking at the pictures, but there were a dozen other safari vehicles looking at this one lion. There were just as many on the other side.

The vehicles are not allowed off-road in the national park, so big traffic jams happen happen when a lion is seen.


Further up the road, we spotted a pride of lions, but it was hard to get a shot. They were hidden behind tall grass and mounds. We could see a few extra ears popping out, here and there.

We found a large group of hippos (can there be a small group of hippos?) and two of them were mating. Hippos are dangerous and kill a lot of humans every year. Near the hippos was a chestnut-bellied sandgrouse.

We saw some more elephants, but there will be no more pictures of elephants unless they are tap dancing with top hat and cane.

We stopped for a morning snack at a rest area where we signed up for the balloon ride at sunrise tomorrow. A cute (tame) hyrox was in the picnic area looking for crumbs (next to the high rock).

We saw more gazelles (see elephants above).

We encountered a traffic jam at a shallow river crossing. Near the water was a Nile monitor. Nearby, was a blacksmith plover.

We spotted another traffic jam. We caught the end of a kill by a cheetah. We saw the cheetah suffocate a Thompson gazelle by lying on it and biting its wind pipe. The cheetah was scared off its kill by a Maasai in the area. Once a cheetah walks away from a kill, it will not return. She and her five cubs will go away hungry.

We headed back to camp for lunch, spotting a topi on the way.

Afternoon Game Drive

It is funny: We don't see an animal for a long time, then we see one. After that, we see them all the time. I guess the guides know this, but they don't spoil the fun. We see the topi all the time, now. Ostriches are plentiful in every park.

We saw the lilac-breasted roller again, but it is my favorite bird and has so many expressions. We also saw a greater spotted eagle

We drove along a small river and spotted a male and female lion. After a few minutes, she rolled on her back.

This was a mating couple. They mate every 15 minutes for a week. During the pon farr, they do not hunt, they do not sleep.

They both ignored the gazelles a few yards away.

As we left the river area, Ombeni got stuck temporarily and had to engage the four-wheel drive hubs to take a short cut. The other guides took the long way around to see a nearby herd of cape buffalo.

The sun was sinking low in the sky as we headed back to camp.