Here is the detail we received from our safari company for our safari today: You will spend the whole day exploring the park, its animals and incredible landscapes. The Serengeti is the habitat for an abundance of wildlife, such as impalas, buffalo, crocodiles and hippos, but is more well-known for its great migrating herds of zebras and wildebeest. The animals’ trek is determined by the rainfall and varies from year to year. Apart from the migrating herds, you may see predators, such as leopards, cheetahs and lions.
We slept well last night, despite the animal noises. When I stepped outside our tent this morning there were 4 African Buffalo right outside our tent. Incredible! What a way to start the day.
African Buffalo
After breakfast we headed to the Covid testing site. We, of course, watched for wildlife along the way and stopped whenever we saw something interesting. We saw a lot of Buffalo including a breeding herd made up of 200+ Buffalo. The African Buffalo is very impressive. We also saw a warthog and a few other species. We have now seen 4 of the big 5. Fingers crossed we will get to see a rhinoceros. Tomorrow will be our best chance for that.
African Buffalo
Warthog
Impala
Thompson Gazelle
Breeding herd of Impalas
Topi
We tested for Covid again. These are our 7th Covid tests for this trip. Hopefully these ones also come back negative.
After the Covid test we headed east toward what Richard described as big cat habitat. We were on the lookout for cheetahs and lions. Along the way we saw some towers of giraffes, a parade of elephants and a few sounders of warthogs.
Tower of Giraffes
A gang of Dwarf Mongoose
Purple Grenadier
Lilac-breasted Roller
Warthog with two Oxpeckers on its back
Grey-backed Fiscal Shrike
A tower of Giraffes and a parade of Elephants
At this point the sun was high in the sky. We were scanning the areas under trees for lions and cheetahs. We did end up spotting two male lions lounging under a tree in the far distance. There may have been a lioness or two as well, but it was hard to tell. They were likely between 500-1000 meters away.
There are at least two male lions under the acacia tree in the distance
The lesson from today was patience pays off. The drive took us through dusty, dry plains without much animal life. We were always scanning our surroundings hoping to spot a big cat, but we could go a long distance without spotting anything.
Nile Monitor
Sounder of Warthogs
Then we hit the jackpot. We came upon a pride of lions. Even better they were right by the trail. We stayed close and observed them for more than an hour. Initially 8 of the lions were laying together near a small mound. While two others were a little way off from the group. These two seemed to see something in the distance and were slowly wandering toward whatever they saw.
Pride of Lions
A GPS collar is put on the eldest female in this pride to allow park rangers to track and protect them
Eventually the group of 8 got up and crossed the road. They were heading toward the water. Here they found another place to lay down. It was remarkable to watch this pride of lions. Definitely one of the highlights of the day.
A typical trail in the Serengeti
Alison titles this photo: Eric on safari
We continued our game drive hoping to see cheetahs. We saw some cool birds including flamingos and ostriches, but no other big cats. Every other safari group we came across hadn’t seen cheetahs either. We gave up on cheetahs and moved into an area that is covered in trees and large rocks. Richard told us that sometimes lions and leopards could be seen in this area. We kept our eyes peeled, but we were having no luck.
Rock Hyrax
Crowned Lapwing
Pied Avocet
Greater Flamingo
Common Ostrich (male)
Klipspringer
Once again patience paid off. We were about to break for lunch when we heard there was a leopard in a tree nearby. Sure enough there was a leopard. They had even dragged a gazelle corpse into the tree. It turned out the leopard wasn’t alone. Her cub was sleeping in the tree next to her.
Leopard
This was baby leopard #1. It was sitting in a tree behind the tree the mama leopard was in.
Can you spot both Leopards?
We stayed and observed the leopards for two hours. They would occasionally wake up and groom themselves and sometimes they would switch positions or move to a new tree branch. We were hoping that one of them might jump down and switch trees. We even ate lunch in the car while they slept.
Once again patience paid off. We were getting ready to leave when another cub popped out on the same tree as the mother leopard. We were so surprised. The cub walked up the tree and right across the mother. Then it laid down. Then the mother leopard moved to another branch. We decided to move on. We did drive to the other side of the tree where we had a better view of the gazelle carcass.
This is baby leopard #2. It popped out right before we were about to leave.
You can clearly see the gazelle head hanging out of the tree
We heard there was a male lion and a couple of lionesses protecting a kill nearby. We headed in that direction. We found them, but they were across a river so we didn’t have a great vantage point. We attempted to find a place to cross but both crossings we found were so muddy and washed out we knew we couldn’t make it.
A male lion is hidden in the tall grass
We did rescue another safari group. The guide had shut off their vehicle while they were observing some animals and when he tried to turn it back on it wouldn’t start. He sent out a call for help and we responded. We pushed his vehicle and it started right up.
We heard there were three cheetahs, but they were kind of far away. We decided to try our luck and headed in that direction, but they were gone before we arrived. In the meantime an evening storm blew in and it started to rain. It started slow and became progressively stronger.
Most animals are hard to see in the rain. So we went to see some that would be a sure bet. Richard took us to a spot where we could see hippos. In this river area there were two huge bloats of hippos. We parked by the larger bloat. There were so many hippos and they were in fairly shallow water so you could see most of them. They were also fairly active opening their mouths super wide, wiggling their ears, and pushing other hippos or standing up in the water to reposition themselves. It was quite remarkable and smelly. It was very, very smelly. We sat and watched them for a while, but eventually we couldn’t take the smell anymore and we moved on.
A bloat of hippopotamus
Then we went looking to see if we could spot any crocodiles. While we didn’t spot a crocodile we did spot a hippo out of the water and we watched it plop back into the water so that was cool.
The rain had cleared and it had become a really pleasant evening. It was cool and clear. We did an en route game drive back to our tent. We saw the herd of Buffalo again and some other wildlife.
Back at our tent we sat on the porch and watched the sunset over the Serengeti. This is a magical place.
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