Tanzania 6

Tags

black kite, black rhino, black-backed jackal, buffalo, elephant, flamingo, great white pelican, hippo, Kori bustard, lesser flamingo, lioness, Ngorogoro, Ngorogoro Crater, rhino, Tanzania, Tarangire, Thomson's gazelle, weaver bird, zebra

We moved on, and I was thrilled now to see flamingos taking off from the lake,

rising higher and higher and higher.  I was mindful of a documentary I had seen on TV about some Great White Pelicans taking off daily from a lake with no fish, using thermals to rise over some mountains to get to another lake where the food was plentiful.

As I followed these flamingos with my eyes, I seemed to me that they were doing the same thing, for whatever reason, and I watched them fly off from the crater and over its rim.  Others more interested in photographic opportunities than wildlife behaviour  did not get as excited as I was.

Kori bustard, display

Black-backed jackal

We found ourselves in an area with many lionesses – and many jeeps.  The former just ignored the latter except when they had to go round them.  Reactions of other wildlife were mixed.  Some seemed to realise that the felines were not hunting, but were just in a quest for water. Others – the Thomson’s gazelles perhaps – maybe could not even see the danger.  Truly hunting lions would not have made themselves so obvious.

We were all excited to see in the distance a black rhino, something we could certainly not have counted on.

Black rhino. The name has nothing to do with the colour.

Black-backed jackal

To the ‘Hippo Pool’ where some of us were fortunate enough to find some shade and a place to sit to have our lunch, amused by two kinds of weaver birds.  We were advised to keep our food well covered or it might be snatched by black kites.

Hippo pool

Two kinds of weaver birds

Black kite

We started to climb – in our jeeps – out of the crater after lunch, to make our way to our next Park, stopping only to pay tribute to those  who over the years had lost their lives in the service of wildlife, killed in the main not by animals but by poachers.

Climbing up the side of the crater

At the top

A tribute to those who have lost their lives in defence of the area’s wildlife

 

(Coming: Tarangire National Park)

Tanzania 5

Tags

cape buffalo, Defassawaterbuck, elephant, flamingo, grey-crowned crane, helmeted guineafowl, hippo, Hyena, jackal, Ngorogoro, Ngorogoro Crater, Oldupai, Olduvai, Rhino Lodge, Tanzania, vervet monkey, warthog, Wildebeest, zebra

Lunch on Monday, 15th February was taken under shelter at the Oldupai (the locally preferred name to the colonial Olduvai) Museum.  The renowned gorge is of great interest to anthropologists, archeologists and geologists.

Approaching the Oldupai Museum

From the top, ‘The Castle’ in the middle ground

Flock of goats with goatherd

We were given a talk, and I for one would like to have spent more time there, were it not that it was very, very, very hot, and air through our moving jeeps used to bring great relief.  As it was, we did not arrive at Rhino Lodge, that night’s accommodation, until fairly late, but not too late to see these in the grounds before it got dark around 6.30 pm.

Defassa waterbuck

Another very early start the next day as we were going the wildlife treasure, the Ngorogoro Crater, and wanted both to see

Sunrise over Ngorogoro Crater

and to  beat as many of the other jeeps as possible.

At last an elephant!

Helmeted guineafowl

Zebra and flamingo far off, in the early morning light

Zebra foal are brown and white

Just a few of a large troop of zebras which went past us

Playtime

Warthog

Always the crater rim as backdrop

Spotted hyena

Wildebeest and jackals

Vervet monkey

Grey-crowned crane

We managed to find a rather out-of-the-way but approved spot to have our breakfast.

– with conveniences!

The pink sheen is flamingos on the lake

A drama unfolded before our eyes.  This was the season when within three weeks thousands and thousands of wildebeest foals are born, in time for migration.  They stand and can walk within a few minutes of birth.  Prey animals love this time of course, and we saw hyena and jackals hanging around.  At one point a mother and calf got separated – sadly it seemed that a tourist jeep was culpable – and our hearts were in our mouths as we saw the hyena looking to exploit the situation.  The calf vainly sought its mother, and in turn attached itself to first one and then another adult female.

Wildebeest solidarity

Hyena joined by jackal

Amazingly, this jackal walked straight past these two – this is not the ‘right’ female – and the calf was able to rejoin the main herd, though we couldn’t tell whether it found its mother.

It’s getting very hot again.

Cape buffalo

We didn’t see many elephants in Ngorogoro

(To be continued)