Day 231: Show Stoppers
Non-birdy creatures fill up Noah's first day in the Serengeti.
August 19, 2015: Serengeti National Park, Tanzania 鈥 We鈥檝e all seen the Serengeti on TV: Classic wide-open savannas, sunset-perfect acacia trees, and big animals meandering around. This is the place where the wildebeest migrate and get eaten by crocodiles at river crossings; it鈥檚 where the movie, 鈥淭he Lion King鈥 was set; it鈥檚 Tanzania鈥檚 oldest national park and the home of Maasai warriors. For me, after various safaris all over Africa in the past two months, this is it鈥攖he megasafari of megasafaris. Nothing says 鈥淎frica鈥 more than the Serengeti.
Getting to Serengeti National Park required a seven-hour drive today from Tarangire. Most of it was on dirt roads so washboarded that, when we arrived at our accommodation this evening, the greeter asked 鈥淗ow was your African massage?鈥 Dust and smoke from grassland fires covered everything inside and out.
We did have time to stop and watch a lioness stalk some wildebeest this morning before we left Tarangire. The whole encounter played out no more than a hundred yards from us鈥攚ildebeest blissfully grazing, lioness in full crouch and stalk mode with just the tips of her ears visible above the grass. It happened slowly, without the fast-forward effect of a nature documentary, and eventually fizzled. The wildebeest, by design or by chance, lingered just out of reach and finally wandered off to safety, but for a few minutes it was heart-pounding stuff.
Lions stole the show this afternoon, too, when we arrived at the Serengeti. A pair of them were lounging next to a waterhole, then Anthony spotted a lion in a tree鈥 then, a kilometer after that, he spotted three more lions in another tree! (These cats, unlike leopards, are not very good at climbing trees, so this was fun to see.)
Meanwhile, it鈥檚 getting more difficult to find new birds. I added just four today: Brown-headed Apalis, Black-lored Babbler, Ruff, and Gray-breasted Francolin. It was fun to watch hundreds of Lesser Flamingos at a soda lake in late afternoon even if I鈥檇 already seen them in other places. This week, I鈥檝e noted the return of Arctic-nesting shorebirds (Ruff, Little Stint, Wood Sandpiper, Green Sandpiper), too鈥攚hich reminds me that, even when I鈥檓 looking at lions, time is ticking ....
New birds today: 4
Year list: 4,022
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