Serengeti Sunrise

We were up at 5:30am every day ... to see what we could see ... which was an amazing amount ;-)

Our routine was to take in as much as possible between sunrise and 1 pm every day, then head back to camp. Perhaps a short snooze after lunch and then we were out again from 4 pm to 6 pm ... but we were a bit later back than that on a couple of occasions. 

The first time we had managed to get two punctures in one day, the second puncture just before we were about to head back to camp. Michael, our guide, had a couple of challenges changing the wheel, but we enjoyed it immensely as we were in a great spot to take in the fading light with a grand view over the Masai Mara. More on that later.

The second time was a little more planned. We had organised to have our sundowners atop a crest as we watched the sun set over the Masai Mara and Isuria Escarpment.

The mornings were fairly cool and the sun was very welcome when it started to warm up. By 8 am we were ready for breakfast and we typically set this up under a thorn tree a little away from the Mara River, but in sight of the big herds of wildebeest on the other side. If they started crossing we were ready to jump into the Landcruiser and get into position closer to the river to start taking photos.

By midday it was often about 30+ degrees Centigrade (86 degrees Fahrenheit) and we were glad of some shade. Towards the end of our stay the wildlife was thinning out as the herds moved further south but we always saw zebra, giraffe, impala and often hyena and baboons early in the day. We frequently saw buffalo as there were several pairs who lived near the camp, but they were the one animal Michael steered clear of.

Mother Cheetah in the Serengeti

This mother cheetah is doing a great job raising her three cubs in the Serengeti. I was fortunate enough to be there last month and we found these four on an early morning game drive. We returned to the same area later in the day to see whether she had been successful in hunting down some food for the family.

Cheetah are becoming comparatively rare now. When I lived in Kenya about 40 years ago, you could be reasonably confident of seeing them on any trip to the game reserve, and often in any open country. That has clearly changed and we saw more leopard on this trip than we saw cheetah, which really blew me away!

I have plenty more photos of this little family to share!

Cheetah watch approaching storm in the Serengeti

An afternoon storm approaches as these cheetah relax after feeding on a Thompson's gazelle. Mum is a fairly small cheetah doing a great job of feeding and raising three cubs on her own in the Serengeti National Park, Tanzania

Whitefella Walkabout
Tanzania, East Africa

An impressive young lion

A good looking fellow in the Serengeti National Park, Tanzania. He sat atop this mound which gave him a view across the plains. A little way from him, in amongst the grass, was a single lioness, perhaps the beginnings of his own pride.

Magnificent now and will be very impressive once he is a little older.

He was trying to snooze, which is what they do most of the day, but we didn't disturb him for very long.

The smell of a still-smouldering campfire at dawn.

I love sitting in the hour before dawn, somewhere far off in the bush, around a still-smouldering campfire, sipping a mug of hot tea while I warm my hands and watch the sunrise.

Add a wide horizon, the sounds of the birds getting busy before the sun shows itself, and the promise of another day ... free to wander randomly across the landscape drinking it all in. So many things seems to make more sense out here and, whilst the rawness of this life seems confronting to some, the birds, the beasts and the little beasties, aka bugs, mostly excel at surviving. The supreme skills of the kingfishers, the power and team work of hyenas, and the lone female cheetah hunting for herself and three cubs.

These are things to contemplate around an old camp fire when life is getting busy for another day of doing whatever it is that you do best. And now it's time to go and see for myself.

Impressive black-maned lion in the Serengeti

We saw a large pride of lions early one morning as we were driving around the area which the guides have nicknamed "Rock City". There were several lionesses in the pride as well as cubs and younger lions of various ages. Our guides, Michael and Jololo, had told us that most of the big male lions were presently living on the Kenyan side of the Mara river, but they thought that there was one big, black-maned lion around, and a few immature lions that had been pushed out of their prides. Indeed we saw a beautiful immature lion the previous day which Michael and Gerard said was very promising for the future, as so many had been lost to poachers.

On this morning we were lucky, but perhaps it was more skill than luck, because Jololo seemed to know where they lived and where they preferred to lie up during the day. In any case he spotted the pride from about 500 metres away, seemingly draped over the top of a rock, but hidden under the shade of the overhanging bushes, and fairly high up in this particular outcrop.

Michael stopped so we could take in the first part of this scene and then slowly drove up between some of the rocks. There we saw this big male, tucked between the boulders so he had a view in various directions but was keeping himself largely obscured. This behaviour is almost certainly one of the reasons why he has lived so long. Closer inspection of some of my photos shows that he has many scars around his head, presumably the consequences of his battles to retain such a large family. We estimated that there were at least fifteen in this pride.

Serengeti Sunset

We had some gorgeous sunrises and sunsets during our time in the Serengeti in November. This photo is one of the best, but I have to say that the first evening we were there was even more spectacular. For some reason I didn't bother to grab my camera though … so I don't have a photo to show you … sorry!

It might have had something to do with the fact that we had been travelling all day by light plane from Nairobi and it had taken us almost nine hours to get to our camp in the Serengeti that night, with four take-offs and three landings ... No make that five take-offs and four landings! We had an aborted landing at Kogatende airstrip which the pilot blamed on some guinea fowl wandering across the runway. Granted the airstrip is just a fairly short dirt track in the northern part of the Serengeti, but many of the passengers were pretty sure he hadn't managed to keep the plane straight as it touched down and we were likely to run out of runway, so the pilot decided to abort the landing. He made the decision pretty quickly, which is always best in my experience. ;-)

Anyway, this is just a round about way to say that I had begun to relax and just didn't feel like getting up to fetch my camera. I said the next morning that we probably wouldn't see another sunset like that first night and I was right. The pink and orange clouds and a rainbow had somehow combined to make it look like someone had carefully smudged all the rainbow colours across the sky. It was very beautiful!

All the same, I hope you like this one because it is pretty good too.

Sunrise spotlight on the Serengeti plains

I loved the colours just after sunrise in the Serengeti. After regular showers the grass was quite green, but still hadn't grown very long after the burn-offs and there was little or no dust. Wonderful time of year to visit.

Judging by the shape of this tree it would seem that giraffe have been browsing here for many years.

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