Serengeti National Park

Expedition in Serengeti National Park was just one great day after another.  It is a massive park that would take the better part of a week to fully explore and its vast space is home to insurmountable numbers of animals.  On our way to our campsite after entering the park, we got a hint of the great migration with hundreds of zebras and wildebeest lining the road.  We also came across a pair of lions with a fresh wildebeest kill.  Over the next few days we saw so many beautiful tropical birds and birds of prey, giraffes, elephants, crocodiles, monitor lizards, a leopard tortoise, hyenas, lions, leopards, cheetahs, different species of jackals, bat-eared foxes, vervet monkeys and baboons, reedbucks, bushbucks, hartebeest, impala, and topi.  One group even saw a rare aardwolf. 

Though it was wonderful to check new species off of my spotted list, the behavioral events we saw were by far my favorite.  During a bird transect we were threatened by a hippo and watched a territorial challenge between two others take place.  One of them had a baby that was oblivious to everything going on around it.  Testosterone levels were also high in impala and we watched numerous horn-locking fights.  We observed a mating pair of lions, a pair of lions, one of which was teasing the other with a zebra leg, and a mother leopard and her cub.  Earlier in the morning she had had two cubs but upon our first arrival, baboons were tormenting her and TANAPA, the National Park authority, came and drove the baboons off.  When we saw her emerge later in the day with only one cub and she kept calling back to their den, it became obvious that the baboons had killed one of the cubs.  This is a common mechanism for anti-predator defense by the baboons since leopards regularly prey on them. 

Over the course of the trip, I somehow was one of the lucky ones to see the most leopards and cheetahs.  I saw 14 leopards, many of which I spotted myself.  Not to toot my own horn but seriously, I should be a leopard tracker.  I also saw six cheetahs.  Two different groups were very close and displaying interesting social and territorial behaviors.  The first two were a pair of males patrolling the boundary of their territory and the other three were a mother and her two large cubs socializing in the early morning of our last day in Serengeti. 

There were a few highlights of expedition for me, however, that are more memorable than the rest.  Our campsite in and of itself was phenomenal.  We were literally in the middle of the Serengeti with nothing but an armed guard between us and the hyenas, lions, wildebeest, elephants, and impala that frequented our camp.  Lying in my sleeping bag in the middle of the night and hearing the lions roaring, the hyenas whooping, and the elephants foraging were also amazing moments.  Our field exercises and guest lecturers were phenomenal.  I learned a lot about the ecosystem, what it takes to be a researcher in Serengeti National Park, and realized more about myself and how happy I would be doing research.  One of our guest lecturers is a Swedish woman working on the Serengeti Lion Project.  She’s been living within park boundaries for three years tracking and recording data on lions every day.  It seems to be a pretty hard and unenjoyable life.  I want her job. 

The clouds were also always spectacular, which made for breathtaking sunsets.  I watched a baby hippo lie on its mothers back as it rested, looked on as mystic eland frolicked off into the trees, came within a foot of a vervet monkey attempting to attack my fellow peers and I was the only one to hold my ground and scare it off, and drove right through the heart of The Great Migration- the seventh wonder of the world.  Animals stretched out to the horizon in all directions and I was overwhelmed with joy and just their sheer numbers.  I couldn’t even begin to explain what’s it’s like to be immersed in the middle of all that flesh, calling noises, dust, and animal smell but I can happily check The Great Migration off my bucket list. 

Overall I guess Serengeti National Park was alright.  Maybe I’ll go back some day but I doubt it.  Ha, just kidding.  It was the best week I’ve had in Africa yet.  I definitely want to go back and I suggest it to anybody else whoever is presented with the opportunity.   

When they refer to this time as the wet season, they mean it.  Rain falls as if every cloud in the sky has turned to liquid...

My first cheetah!

We saw these three on our last day in the park as we were heading towards the main gate.  Several of my peers had not seen a cheetah yet, a species that might soon be extinct in the wild, so it was great that everyone got to see them.  I think that the cheetah ('duma' in Swahili) is also my favorite predator.  

This is the mama leopard I mentioned earlier.  Watching her play with her cub was a moving experience that words can't even hope to capture.

On this day we saw seven leopards in three trees next to one another.  It was absolutely amazing to see so many close together since they are usually a solitary species.  No one knows why they were so social this day.

I just like these next three pictures of a female leopard sleeping away the afternoon heat...

This mama elephant is the most beautiful elephant I've ever seen.  Elephants all actually look very different and it's easy to tell them apart if you pay attention and this mother of two was absolutely breathtaking.  Her wrinkles are beautiful, she has sky-high eyelashes, and she is a very happy and affectionate mother but short on patience when her young get in the way of eating.  Maybe her eating temper is something her and I have in common that draws me to her?

Isn't he handsome?

She thinks so too.  Actually, all large male cats have spines on their penises that ensure penetration and also invoke ovulation in the female.  This is painful (obviously) for the female and so the male exhibits much dangerous growling and biting during copulation and then dismounts quickly snarling to deter the female from attacking him.  It is not all violent though.  There is also a lot of licking and nudging and it can't be that bad since a pair will stay together for several days and are known to copulate over 3,000 times!  Sounds exhausting.

This young male is taunting a female with his treat of a zebra leg.  It's kind of surreal to think that that leg was once attached to an animal...

This is a female bushbuck.  They are very pretty antelopes.  One of my favorites. 

They kind of remind me of the boy or girl next door.  At first glance they're nothing special, but if you look more closely you find that they are very nice on the eyes.

Serengeti is the only place I've seen topis so far.  They're very odd antelopes that look to be straight out of a Dr. Suess book.  Look at how high up on his face his eyes are.  Their coloration, horn shape, and heads just kind of make them look like they were thrown together with leftover parts.  I guess several African animals look like that actually.  Man I love this place.  It has oddballs up the wazoo.

This was my closest encounter with elands.  Apparently they are very rare in Serengeti and this sighting was actually my Wildlife Management professor's highlight of the trip.  They are just so mystic looking, some creature found in a fairy tale.  

They appear even more magical when they can get their largest-antelope-species-in-the-world-asses that high in the air.  

This was the closest I've come yet to a hyena.  In Serengeti we also saw many hyena dens with pups, hyenas wallowing in watering holes, and monching on the migratory species.

And then on the last day God said:  "The girl shall see heaven on Earth." and so before her path he placed the creatures of black and white stripe as far as the eye could see....

I've never seen so many zebras.  And then I've never seen so many zebras with so many wildebeest.

This aerial shot can't even do the enormity of The Great Migration justice.  This is also not even the most dense they can get.  Within a couple of weeks they will be over fifty times this many ungulates in Serengeti!

On the left is a target set for Tsitsi flies.  They are attracted to the colors black and blue.  If they bite you you can get African Sleeping Sickness which is very scary and when the locals see a Tsitsi fly they urgently avoid it.  On the right is the coolest set up I've ever seen.  The couple traveling in it are from Great Britain.  They made this setup, shipped it to Tanzania and are working their way through Africa all the way to South Africa building playgrounds.  They got sponsors to pay for their entire trip!  Does that sound nice or what!?

 

This is a leopard tortoise.  I've seen quite a few here in TZ and it's always fun to spot
one.  It's a lot different than spotting the other animals because it means that you have
to be paying attention to the ground close to the road rather than looking out across the
landscape.  Seeing one is more serendipitous than actual acuity.

A real life African wild crocodile!

This is the Egyptian Goose.  It is a beautiful bird but also very territorial.  

There were so many birds of prey in the Serengeti.                                                   

This is the Long-Crested Eagle.  He looks straight out of an animated movie.

These are European Bee Eaters.  A new species for me.  I love the Common Bee Eater (below) so it was a nice surprise to see this migrant.

The Lavender-Breasted Roller is another of my favorite birds here.  It looks as if a child was given a gray bird and some paint to do with what he pleased...

Have you ever seen a green dove before?  I hadn't either.  I spotted these guys in a high tree.  Their known as the Olive Dove.  I think the name fits just fine.

This is Whistling Acacia.  Besides having thorns and very small, tough leaves, this plant also has ant galls to deter herbivores from monching on it.  Ants live in those black balls and when the branch starts to move, they all come rushing out to bite whatever is messing with their branch.  It's an interesting sympatric relationship since many galls are usually parasites, but it's also just fun to shake a branch and watch all of the little soldiers come rushing out to find nothing and wander about very confused-like.  

This male Vervet monkey was the culprit that jumped up on the top of our car as we were all standing out of it.  One of his redeeming qualities is his vibrant blue balls.  Seriously, they're hard to take your eyes off of.  I want a shirt that says:  "My favorite color is Vervet Blue."  

The sky was always phenomenal.