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Elephants Thursday, December 28, 2000First thing today we found a pride of eleven lions with two males. Perhaps I should say two males old enough to have manes. The young ones don’t look any different than the females. They don’t get that full mane until they are about four years old. This was our biggest lion find so far. We saw Coke Hartebeest on the Kopjes and saw waterbuck again. Birds for the morning were Rock Kestrals, Banded Coursers, Colby Falcon, Caribou Storks, Banteleur Eagle and some hooded vultures or eagles that I couldn’t exactly identify. Weaverbirds are everywhere and it’s neat to see a tree full of their nests. They are bright colors. Lots we’ve seen are yellow. We saw a big herd of elephant with several babies – two of them were playing together and fun to watch. We got to watch one face to face a good while. We went to the Visitor area and took about 45 minutes to walk through and then went to Seronera Lodge, which is in the middle of the park We saw three-spotted Hyena and found another hippo pool and elephants out on the plains. It rained much of the night and we had watched the lightning as we went to sleep. We just passed one land Rover and a cross-country truck STUCK on the side of the road in the mud. Andrew and Rusty are interested in one of those large trucks that cross the continent. It would be a LONG but interesting trip. They can’t go too far off-road obviously. We found another pride of lions sitting out in the middle of nowhere. We arrived at our private camp. The tents are ready for us and they are preparing lunch. The crew comes out a day or two before to get set up. It’s a lot of gear and a huge truck they use to haul it all in. We passed hundreds of zebra coming into the campsite and I am watching them through the trees right now as I sit on the front porch. We also saw giraffe and an elephant trying to bath in a puddle in the road on our way in. Birds are everywhere! We WILL hear night sounds here. Andrew and I got the end tent so only Ben and Ephata are on the end past us. Dick and Shirley have the first tent by the dining hall and then the girls are next to them with Rus and Sherry on past them next to us. That keeps all the skittish girls in the middle. There is a huge lake very close (water is down yet) and it is full of flamingos. I didn’t realize the kind of noise they made. Our tents are very similar to the ones in Tarangire. I am sitting on the “veranda” writing and it’s very pleasant. We got to nap a little over an hour after lunch. We could hear thunder all around us off in the distance. We could hear the birds and individual kinds of insects. I’m wishing we had been in tents all the time. We did hear lion here last night as well as hyena and it did rain. The sky is dark to one side now. There are supposed to be 28 kinds of hoofed animals in this park. It became a World Heritage site in 1981. We need to find the book “The Serengeti Shall Not Die”… it should be a good read. Ndutu Camp is named for the Soda Lake… no inlet or outlet so no hippos are in it. There were four giraffe at the end of the camp after our nap. The flat top acacia trees (Acacia Tortilis) are here and that’s a favorite food. We saw Aqua Buzzards at the lake (whiter than fish eagles) and found 2 male and a female lion sleeping in the riverbed. This is mating season. We saw a herd of Coke Hartebeests with two babies, another male lion, and Crowned Plovers. We just passed a car asking if we have seen a lodge!!! We’re in the bake bed in the middle of NOWHERE!!! Saw five Jackals… It was raining so we stopped at the Ndutu Safari Lodge…. Must be the lodge those folks were looking for. We walked around and looked a bit. I think we can see lights from here off in the distance from our campsite. Driving back from here the Hazels spotted a striped hyena. It was only the third time Ephata had ever seen one. They are nocturnal so it’s pretty rare to see them in the day. Yellow-billed storks lined the tops of the trees after the rain. One side of the sky is bright with white clouds. It is still sprinkling but the sky is getting lighter. African Hoopoe Crested Francolin Black Kites and lots of Superb Starlings here. We have pretty much ignored the baboon troops here after seeing so many in Lake Manyara. By the time we got back to camp the rain was gone and it’s cooled off. We have HOT water too! I’m back on the porch and Andrew is in the shower. Was nice to experience the rain a little. We’ve seen some BIG male lions here and are going to try to return tomorrow a.m. One of them laid out in the rain oblivious to it. Right now Linda is entertaining us with chicken and goat sounds and Andrew is practicing sword moves with an umbrella. Entertainment is cheap and fun!! Jane Wojecki |
Serengeti National Park Thursday, December 28, 2000 Departed from the lodge after breakfast and traveled to the center of the Serengeti National Park along the Seronera River. Saw more hippos along with more animals. We ended back in the Serengeti plains. The migration was already past this point heading south so there were not a lot of animals to see. Went by the visitor center and took a nice walking tour that explained about the migration and the National Park. Some key points picked up during the visit to the visitor center were that the area became a park in 1951. Wildebeest young can walk in minutes of birth and can run at full speed in an hour. 90% of the wildebeest are born in a 3 week period.
By having all the births at one time, helps maintain the number of wildebeest. Drove to our private mobile tented camp and had lunch. It’s amazing how far from no where we were. Our camp is located in a forest area not far from a lake. We all had a good nap and then took a game drive. We found several lions and lake with a lot of flamingos in it. Spotted a rate white striped hyena. Returned to the camp for dinner. Sat by the camp fire before dinner. Linda and Sherry are both afraid of bugs, which there are quite a few of at night around the fire and dinning room tent. We started hearing lions roaring just at sunset near the camp. Ben got up to pull one of the land rovers closer to us.
While walking to the land rover he spotted some eyes and froze. He just knew it was lions and started sweating. He finally saw that it was a pack of hyenas that had come in the camp area. After catching his breadth, he moved one of the Land Rovers closer to us and told us that it might be good to let him drive us to our tents after dinner, even though they were only about 30 yards from where we were sitting. Ben scared the hyenas away but we could hear them through the night along with the lions. The Hazels
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