Tanzania 2015 - Tarangire, Day 2

Tarangire National Park - 3 August 2015

Out first day without Ombeni as our guide. Nasoro will do the honors.

We drove back to Tarangire, through the same entrance as yesterday. We drove by a school as the children were starting the day, singing the national anthem.

We saw some of the same animals as before: impala, superb starling, warthog, vulture, stork.

We took some nice close-ups. The close-up of the female giraffe shows she has hair on the knobs and is missing a third knob above the eyes.






We saw a vertebrae from a giraffe and a laughing dove.

We saw an immature, white-headed vulture and a dusky turtle dove in a whistling acacia. The whistling acacia makes a whistling noise when the wind blows.

On a mound near the tree where the vulture roosted was a cheetah with two cubs.

The cheetah is such a graceful animal.

Lilac-breasted roller and immature white-backed vulture.

Ostriches by an acacia tree with zebras in the background.

A better shot of a Marabou stork and our first sighting of the secretary bird.

The Tarangire River runs through the Tarangire National Park, among grasslands, acacia trees and baobab trees.

As we were leaving the park for the day, we saw a group of baboons around a tree. One of them found the perfect hammock, another had a free ride.

Just as we were leaving the baboons, Nasoro spotted a hyrox sunning himself on the rocks.








Back at the lodge, we met for a nature walk with Ombeni down to the lake. We explored the local flora, noting the commiphora africana tree that had a rubbery sap that could be used for many purposes, like chewing gum, insecticide and aphrodisiac.

We saw many footprints in the sand: stork, hippo, jackal with zebra, jackal with dik dik.

Great white pelicans could be seen in the distance with great cormorants. The digital zoom on the camera gives an impressionistic view.

Sleeping with the cormorants were some hippos that we didn't notice until they decided to go back into the water. Just behind the hippos is a grey heron.

The view from the edge of Lake Burunge. The lake has no drainage river, so it is a salt lake.

Bobbi skipped the walk and stayed at the tent to relax and do yoga, so the wildlife came to visit her: dik diks and striped mongoose. The mongoose remind me of gremlins or those crazy aliens in the MIB HQ.