tale, n. A narrative of real or imaginary events; a story. fable, n. An entertaining and often oral account of a real or fictitious occurrence. Turkey Tales and Frog Fablesn. A narrative of travels and events, mostly real and sometimes entertaining, of the Turkey and the Frog.
Our track is shown in magenta on the map below. The total distance was only about 40 miles, but it took over 4 hours because we kept stopping to take pictures of the animals we encountered along the way.
Day 6 is in magenta. Afternoon trip was from Mbuzi Mawe Camp to Serengeti Sametu Camp.
Buffalo. We had not gone far before we began to see large numbers of African Buffalo. Those pictured below were well off the road, but some other groups were along or on the road. In the past when we had encountered antelope of various kinds on the road, including wildebeest, Fazal would keep driving and they would scamper out of our way. I could not help but notice that when there were buffalo on the road, Fazal stopped well back and let them pass before we moved forward. They may look a lot like domestic cattle but they are definitely not domesticated. Buffalo are mean and unpredictable. Fazal did not want to antagonize them.
Herd of African Buffalo
Vervet monkey. We also caught sight of a lone vervet monkey near the side of the road. We were pleased to finally see one of these. We had expected to see many of them in Arusha at the Coffee Lodge, but our guide there said they had worked hard to drive them away since they had become such a nuisance.
Vervet monkey
Baboons. A bit further we spotted a group of baboons in some trees. The pictures below show what seemed to be a family within the group. The adults were preening while the baby crawled around and between the adults. I have no idea how old the little one was, but he seemed awfully small.
Cheetah. We had seen very few if any other vehicles as we worked our way south until all of a sudden there were many parked along the side of the road. Just as in every U.S. national park we had ever visited, a traffic jam usually meant only one thing--an animal was nearby and possibly doing something interesting. Sure enough there was a cheetah a short distance off the road.
Cheetah at her kill with blood on her face.
She was still working on a fresh kill.
She was so close it was a great photo-op.
She clearly knew we were there and looked right at us.
However, like most of the other animals we had encountered, she certainly did not consider the safari vehicles a threat and mostly ignored us.
Fortunately she was just far enough away that the whole thing wasn't too gross. According to our guide book, cheetahs have to eat their kill quickly since any of a variety of scavengers (lions, hyenas, jackals, leopards, and vultures) will move in quickly. Being solitary animals, cheetahs cannot defend the kill.
When she looked like she was settling in for a nap, we decided to keep moving since we still had a long way to go.
Dik-diks. Our next encounter was a small group of several tiny antelope known as dik-diks. When fully grown they stand only 12-15 inches high at the shoulder.
Dik-dik
Dik-dik
Night time predators. By this time it was approaching 6 p.m. and starting to get dark, especially due to the overcast skies. However, the growing darkness also meant the night time predators were starting to appear.
We caught sight of a spotted hyena.
Spotted hyena
We needed to get to the camp, since we were not supposed to be moving
around after dark. Being so close to the equator, darkness comes on
quickly with very little dusk. However we made a slight detour to a tree with a vehicle parked nearby. Why? Leopard!!
Leopard. Leopards are described in our guidebook as follows:
"Secretive, solitary, and elusive, leopards are extremely difficult to spot in the wild, spending the daylight hours resting high in the trees. They hunt alone, during the hours of darkness between dusk and dawn. By nature, leopards are extremely dangerous, aggressive and unpredictable." (Tanzania Wildlife and Safari Guide, Diane and Peter Swan)
Fazal was excited. Even though it was getting
late and we were supposed to be off the road, he was not going to pass up this rare opportunity to see a
leopard.
Leopard resting in the tree
Once we got close and knew where to look, we could clearly see her. She was sound asleep despite us parked nearby.
Driving to the other side, we could see her head.
Also in the tree was what was left of some type of antelope. Most scavengers cannot climb trees. Therefore, to protect their kill, leopards commonly cache it in a tree. Leopards are extremely strong and can drag kill heavier than they are up into a tree. They may return days later to finish eating.
Leopard's cached kill
It really was getting dark now, but we were hopeful that she would wake up, so we waited.
After about 30 more minutes she finally started to stir. But, being a cat, she first had to do important cat things like taking a bath.
Finally she began her descent. Since we were among the few vehicles still there, we hoped we were in a good spot to see her come down.
That was incredible! Although the photography is not nearly as good as the still shots above, below is a video of her descent and exit.
We really did need to get moving now. Fortunately we had only a short distance left to go. It was completely dark when we arrived at Serengeti Sametu Camp, but it had definitely been worth staying out to see the leopard come down from the tree.
Below is yet another fantastic African sunset. This was actually shot earlier when we were waiting for the leopard to wake up, but it seemed like a good way to end. I still cannot believe all the things we had seen on this day. It was truly an entire trip's worth of outstanding experiences, but there was still much more to come.
[This is post #11 of what will be multiple posts about our 2024 trip to Africa.To go to the first post in the series CLICK HERE.]
It was now nearly 12:30 p.m. on September 15, Day 6 of our African safari. We had had an extraordinary morning seeing lots of lions and elephants. However we needed to head back to camp, Mbuzi Mawe Serena Camp, to grab some lunch, then begin our trek southward to our next camp.
Mbuzi Mawi was one of the more interesting camps we stayed at during the entire trip for a variety of reasons: the nature of the rooms, the location of the camp, and the up close interaction with some of the animals
Actually in a canvas tent. One of the first interesting things about this camp was that the rooms were actually tents. The two pictures below are of the inside of our room. The windows on the sides unzipped to expose screened windows. To enter and exit, we had to unzip both the canvas and the screen coverings at the door. Having only canvas between us and the outdoors was a bit disconcerting overnight since there were lots of animal noises that sounded very close.
Inside our room with the entrance to the bathroom visible in the background.
Not much between us and the outside.
Despite being in a tent this was definitely not Boy Scout camping. The entire tent was on a raised concrete platform covered with tile. There was 24 hour electricity, a ceiling fan, our own private bath with flush toilet and shower, plus gobs of space. There was also an additional tent covering over the entire unit. Like everywhere we stayed, the water was not potable, but they provided us with bottled water.
This picture from the Mbuzi Mawe Serena Camp website is not our room, but ours was identical in design with the concrete platform and extra canvas covering.
Built on a kopje. Not only were we in a tent, but the entire camp backed up onto a kopje. Some of the public areas were actually part of the way up the side of the kopje and hence were elevated.
Kopjes are the iconic rock formations of the Serengeti. The formations are large weathered granite boulders. The formations rise like islands out of the otherwise flat plain. They range in size from small, isolated formations to large clusters that cover several acres.
Below is a picture from the camp website of the camp showing the kopje with various buildings clustered around and on the rocks.
The central lounge or lobby is the brown structure with multiple columns to the right of the kopje. The restaurant is to the left of the lobby in the trees. Both of these are roughly a story above the level of the tents surrounding the kopje. Our tent was to the right and behind the lobby in the trees. To get from our room to the lobby required walking up a sloped walkway.
Satellite photo of Mbuzi Mawe Serena Camp taken 1/23. The new main entrance road that ended near our room did not yet exist at the time of this photo.
Hyraxes. Kopjes are particularly important because they provide a unique habitat for a wide variety of plants and animals.
We caught a picture from our vehicle of this Rock Hyrax lounging among the rocks as we returned to camp for lunch
One of the animals that resides exclusively in the kopjees is the Rock Hyrax. The hyrax is an interesting animal. After reading about it ahead of time I had hoped to see one, however I did not realize we would get to see any up close.
Hyraxes are small mammals that look like overgrown guinea pigs. The underside of their feet are such that they can get good traction on smooth rock, enabling them to climb in the kopjees. Perhaps most strangely, they are the closest relative to the elephant!
They live in colonies of up to 50 individuals. We learned later that the high pitched animal noises we heard most of the night were the hyraxes. According to this site, the sounds have syntax In other words, they communicate in orderly and arranged sounds. I have no idea what they were saying, but there seemed to be a lot of them and they were very noisy much of the night.
Lunch with the hyraxes. After a brief stop at the room, we went directly to the dining room to grab lunch. Unbeknown to us, there were several hyraxes under one of the tables. They surprised us as they begrudgingly left when we started moving the chairs.
The hyraxes that had been under the tables were climbing up the rocks beyond the railing.
Below is a close-up of the area beyond the railing. I think I can see four hyraxes in this shot.
Hyraxes climbing up the rocks after we disturbed them from their sleeping spot under one of the tables.
Although we kept our distance, they did not seem either combative or scared, just annoyed that they had to move.
Hyrax glaring back at us
Unlike most mammals, hyraxes have poor control of their body temperature. They lie on rocks in the sun in the early morning to get warm. Given this was the middle of the day, we presumed they were using this as a spot to cool off.
On our way back to the room after an enjoyable lunch we encountered yet another one at the edge of the walkway. I guess I now understood why the staff were so careful to zip the opening to the tents all the way to the bottom. I got the impression these guys would be glad to wander into our room given the chance.
Hyrax next to the walkway on our way back from lunch
Just chillin' out. We had a bit of time to relax in the room before leaving for our next camp. Below is a picture from our room's porch looking north. This is the new entrance road to the camp. It had been dark when we arrived the night before and when we left this morning. I was checking out the kopje in the distance to post as a find on an Earthcache. However, now that it was light, it was possible to see a couple of other interesting things.
View from our room's porch looking north along the entrance road.
There was a pile of elephant dung just beyond the walkway to the room. I don't know how long it might have been there, but there had definitely been an elephant there some time in the not too distant past.
There was also a navy blue and black cloth hanging next to the road. That is a tsetse fly trap. We had been warned prior to the trip not to wear navy blue or black clothing since it attracts tsetse flies. This piece of cloth is sprayed with insecticide. Presumably when the flies are attracted to the cloth they encounter the insecticide and die.
Elephant dung and tsetse fly trap near our room
Off to more adventures. It was now about 3 p.m. Fazal returned with the safari vehicle. We loaded up and set off for our next camp, Serengeti Sametu Camp. It was a trip of only 40 miles, but with all of the interesting things we ended up seeing (including cheetahs and leopards!), it was after 7 p.m. and quite dark by the time we arrived.
Magenta is the gps track for Day 6 (9/15). The magenta track north of Mbuzi Mawe Tented Camp was the morning adventures described in the earlier post. The afternoon trip from Mbuzi Mawe Tented Camp to Serengeti Sametu Camp is the subject of the next post.
However, just as we were leaving Mbuzi Mawe Camp we saw another of the iconic kopje animals, a pair of klipspringers. Klipspringers are small antelope measuring only 18-24 inches high at the shoulder. They walk on the front of their hooves, making them look like they are walking on their toes. This adaptation gives them traction to climb on smooth, slippery rocks.
It was wonderful to catch sight of these guys. Unfortunately they took off so quickly, scampering up some nearby boulders, that we only got a few pictures of the male and no pictures of them on the rocks. However, we felt very lucky to see them at all since they are primarily nocturnal. Fazal also told us that Mbuzi Mawe (i.e. the name of the camp) means klipspringer in Swahili. That seemed like an appropriate way to end our visit at this very interesting camp.
[This is post #10 of what will be multiple posts about our 2024 trip to Africa.To go to the first post in the series CLICK HERE.]
It is now September 15, Day 6 of our African safari. Our long trip the day before had brought us to Mbuzi Mawe Serena Camp, which is at the northern edge of the Central Serengeti.
Stylized map of the Central Serengeti. Mbuzi Mawe Serena Camp is the red circle in the upper center immediately above Retina Pool. Our next camp was Karibu Sametu Camp, the red circle on the far eastern edge of the Central Serengeti. (https://www.africadreamsafaris.com/maps/central-serengeti)
In many ways the Central Serengeti is what most people visualize when they think of an east African safari: wide open gassy plains with a few dispersed trees, kopjes (granite outcroppings), and a diversity of permanent resident wildlife, Among the variety of wildlife, this is the region especially known for big cats: lions, leopards, and cheetahs.
Multi-part day and what a day it turned out to be. We wanted to explore the immediate area. However, since we were only staying at this camp one night, we would need to make the drive to our next camp. Therefore today would be really two parts with an interesting lunch break thrown in.
The morning was a close by
game drive, the subject of this post. Our lunch break at the camp involved some interesting critters, so that is the subject of the next post. Finally the afternoon would be the drive to our next camp, with stops to see anything interesting. We saw even more great things along the way and is the subject of yet another post.
Three posts for just one day?! Yes indeed. We saw all three large cats just today. Not only did we see them, but we got to see them doing some really interesting things often right next to us.
Up dark and early. One of our goals for the day was to see some lions. Lions usually hunt at night and sleep much of the day. The best time to see them moving around, since night time travel in the park is forbidden, is dawn or dusk. We were therefore up before daybreak in preparation for an early start.
It was still dark outside when we made our way to the central lounge area (i.e. lobby). As with all of the camps, that meant we needed to call for an escort to avoid any problems with animal encounters. We had heard lots of animal noises throughout the night, although we did not know until later that much of that was due to the local hyraxes (more on them in the next post). However it was clear as we pulled away from the camp later in the morning that there were a large number of African buffalo very close by. I am glad we did not have any up close encounters with them, with or without an escort.
Looking back towards camp as we left in the safari vehicle we could see several African buffalo very close by, including this guy. Note one of the camp buildings in the background.
Since we were leaving before breakfast was served, the camp staff kindly
provided us with coffee, juice and muffins to tide us over until we got
to our boxed breakfasts later in the vehicle.
Looking for Lions. Once on our way, we did not stop for much since we were anxious to find lions before they settled down for the day. We did see this hornbill near camp. According to iNaturralist this is an African Grey Hornbill, one of 24 hornbill species found in Africa. Seeing a hornbill brought back memories of Zazu, one of my favorite characters in The Lion King.
African Gray Hornbill
Fazal immediately started driving up and down several of the roads in the area. He was looking for the lions. Since I did not know what to look for I just took everything in as best I could There were lots of gazelles and other grazing animals, but I did not see much of anything else.
Below is a video of part of our wanderings. There are several things to note in the video.
The road, like all roads in the Serengeti, is unpaved and rough.
This is primarily open grassland, although the grass is quite dry since it is near the end of the dry season.
There are some trees. What I did not realize until later is that the trees are mostly along a small creek. The road roughly paralleled the creek. The creek was dried up in most places, but there were a few remaining "waterholes".
Although they are difficult to see unless viewing the video full screen on a computer monitor (downside of shooting this with an ultra wide lens on my GoPro), there were lots of grazing animals that scattered as we approached. These were primarily Thomson's Gazelles, often referred to as "tommies".
Although there were animals, there were no other safari vehicles anywhere in sight.
Although I had not realized it since I was too busy looking at everything, our gps track showed we had been at this for over an hour. Fazal tried not to show it, but he was getting frustrated.
Lions returning from their overnight hunt. Finally he spotted the lions heading north. I did not see them, but he quickly moved us to a location ahead of them next to the treeline and south of where he knew the waterholes to be. He suspected that is where the lions were headed. Sure enough, here they came headed straight for us, three adult female lions.
And then there were cubs,lots and lots of cubs. I was so busy taking pictures of the lionesses coming from their overnight hunt that I totally missed a huge set of cubs pouring out to meet them.
The lionesses had left the cubs overnight in the trees near the water with a "nanny lion" while they went to go hunt. The cubs were overjoyed to see them, as can be seen in the picture and video below.
At the very end of the video you can hear a roar. It was a fourth
lioness returning from the hunt. It was hard to get them all in one
picture, but by our count there were five adults (four that had gone
hunting plus the nanny) and twelve cubs.
The lions spent quite sometime socializing with the cubs and with one another.
Meandering north to the waterhole. After a lot of socializing, the lions finally starting meandering
further north, much to the concern of the Thomson's Gazelles nearby.
They eventually ended up at a waterhole which was 0.6 miles north of where we originally saw them, i.e. the group hug location.
Lions at the waterhole
Fazal kept moving us to different locations so we could see the lions clearly. Our gps track is shown below superimposed on an aerial
view of the area. It looks kind of crazy at first, however the darker
north-south green line is the tree line along the seasonal creek. The creek actually splits at the waterhole into two branches, one going northeast and one going northwest. Over the course of multiple
hours that morning we spent time on both sides of the creek.
The location of the lions'
group hug is towards the south. This picture is only
a very small portion of our track. Before seeing the lions we had gone
2.5 miles further south along the treeline. The waterhole is further north. The distance from "Lion Group Hug" to "Waterhole" is about 0.6 miles.
GPS
track with waypoints for key animal sightings morning of 9-15.
North-south darker curvy green line is the tree line along the seasonal
creek. Distance from Breakfast waypoint to Lion Group Hug waypoint is
0.6 miles.
Lions on the move again. After watching the lions at the waterhole we went further north. In the picture below the lions are leaving the water hole and walking north towards us. By this time a few other vehicles had shown up.
Lions leaving the waterhole
The lions were not concerned at all about the vehicles.
The lions continued further north...directly towards us!
Some of them thought the shade from our vehicle was a good place to rest.
I saw a cub walking straight for the front of our vehicle. With so many lions nearby I did not want to hang out the window, so I stuck the camera out the window, aimed in his general direction, and hoped for the best. I got lucky and got the picture below. I love the expression on his face as he seems to be trying to figure out what a safari vehicle is.
One of the cubs checking out our vehicle
For whatever reason the lions only stayed next to us for a few minutes then moved on to catch up with the rest of the pride.
On to join the rest of the pride
It wasn't easy getting that many cubs moving forward. They were just so playful.
Herding cats
However the mothers prevailed and got everyone in line.
Time for Breakfast. They finally settled down in the shade of a small tree. None of their actions since the lionesses and cubs had reunited had been the least bit hurried. It had taken them an hour to slowly meander northward to this site 0.6 miles from where we first saw them.
We moved a bit closer so we could watch, then decided this was a great place to sit back and dig into our box breakfasts. I couldn't believe we were sitting there eating breakfast just feet from this pride of lions.
Of course we kept switching between eating and taking pictures of the lions doing their lion things.
I would never want to come in contact with them when out of the vehicle, but from here they so much reminded me of the many cats we have had over the years.
Yes, they lick their paws like all kitties seem to do.
Yes, they lounge in all kinds of weird orientations like all kitties seem to do.
Cat napping. Check out the size of the paws. The one on the left showing the pads belongs to the cub. Momma's paw is that gigantic one in the center on top of the cub.
We move on. It had been more than two hours since we first saw the lionesses heading towards us from their overnight hunt. At that time we were the only vehicle in sight. However more vehicles had gradually arrived. Now there was quite the crowd gathered around the sleeping lions and more vehicles appeared to be coming.
Crowd of vehicles around the sleeping lions
Elephants. To get away from the crowd we moved south and sure enough spotted something new and very exciting...elephants! First a bull elephant and then the matriarchal herd were working their way northward along the tree line.
Bull elephant ahead of the herd.
The bull elephant had obviously been in some water. Given all of the mud on his
tusks, he probably had been digging in the mud to find water. In
addition to using it to cool off, elephants need to drink about 50
gallons of water a day.
Most of the herd. Note the two young ones play fighting on the left.
Lots of little ones
Small, medium, and large, with extra small tucked in behind
They passed us...
Elephants passing by
....then we passed them. We continued leapfrogging them as they slowly moved north along the tree line.
We jumped ahead, but they soon caught up with us. The dry creek bed is in the foreground.
We moved just a bit, then to my surprise the mother and baby came right up to the bushes in front of us.
Mother and baby grazing immediately next to us.
Despite being the largest land animals, elephants are herbivores and only eat vegetation. An adult elephant eats an average of 300 lb of food a day. That includes all types of leaves, twigs, tree bark, roots, bushes, grass, and fruit.
Elephants have a sweet tooth. We could see them eating a variety of things at this spot. However the mother was particularly interested in the two bushes on each side of us. These are bushveldt gardenias which, at least this time of year, have white colored fruit about the size of a baseball.
Fruit on the bushveldt gardenia
Apparently elephants have quite the sweet tooth and will go after fruit whenever they can. She was working hard to pick them off with her trunk.
Elephant with a bushveldt gardenia fruit
Below is a video of the mother and baby eating in front of us. The baby is eating low hanging leaves and grass, but the mother is more focused on the fruit. Near the end, at approximately the 28 second mark, she grabs the fruit with her trunk from the bush on the right, starts to put it in her mouth but drops it, picks it up and gets it in her mouth this time.
What happened? Suddenly these two and all of the other elephants quietly turned and started walking at a right angle away from the tree line. There was no panic or even particular hurry, but they all immediately stopped what they were doing and started to move away.
Elephants suddenly leaving
They seemed so content chomping away on the bushes and grass. Why did they suddenly turn and leave? According to Fazal, they had gotten far enough north that they smelled the lions and decided to take off to avoid a confrontation. Even a pride of lions could probably not bring down a healthy adult elephant. Indeed the lion would risk being killed by the elephant. However, lions might try to attack a very young elephant even though it would be fiercely defended by the adults. With all of the little ones in this herd it seems the adults decided it wasn't worth the trouble to get any closer to the lions.
Back to the Lions then to Lunch. By this time the crowd of vehicles around the lions had thinned out so we watched them for awhile longer. The nanny lion left to get something to eat. We thought we might see her chasing some of the tommies or warthogs we could see in the distance, but she went further than we could see.
The lions continued to lounge around.
That was likely to continue, especially during the heat of the day. As one guidebook noted, lions spend 20 hours out of 24 conserving energy unless the opportunity for easy to catch prey presents itself. We therefore decided to head back to camp for lunch and a little down time before loading the vehicle for the trip to our next camp. Turns out lunch was a bit more entertaining than expected due to this little guy and his friends, hyraxes. That is the subject of the next post.
