A tale of two safaris - Tanzania 2016 (followed by Rwanda)

[Kitsafari]

@@Zubbie15 tarangire looked gorgeous in the mist. that was the start of our first ever safari, and the minute we crossed the gate into the park and saw the baobabs, zebras and impalas, we fell in love with the bush.

 

beautiful landscape pix of manyara and the crater (we had our share of the crowds) and nice capture of the lion sneeze. first time i've ever seen such spray from a lion's nostrils in technicolour stills! LOL. and a lovely story on the serval.

[Zubbie15]

Thanks @@Kitsafari, I agree Tarangire was what I consider our first real safari park and it'll always be a special place for me.

[Zubbie15]

The next morning, we were out of our tent just as the sky was beginning to lighten up. Our plan to go see the herd yesterday got quite waylaid, so we wanted to try this day again. Other guides had also told Mussa that there was a leopard hanging around the Kusini plains area. Because of this, we weren't going to be patient at sightings early in the morning, so despite our patience yesterday we were going to be one of the snap-and-go vehicles today!

We headed off, and made our way along the shore of the lake. Our first sighting were a pair of hyenas, relaxing along the road.

We then came across this chestnut-banded plover, which Mussa, who originally was trained as a birding guide, was excited to see as I gather they aren't a particularly common sight. Birdlife international's website suggests the subspecies found in Tanzania/Kenya consists of at most 6000 individuals.

Continuing along into the swamp area, we came across a large size pride hanging out along the water. There was a wide range of ages represented, from the large pride males down to some fairly young cubs. Despite the fact that it was still early in the morning and fairly cool, they seemed fairly settled in and we were on a mission, so we fairly quickly bid them adieu.

So after taking a few photos, we headed off. We made a quick stop for this chanting-goshawk (I think it's a dark based on the color of the bill, but I'm not 100% convinced).

We fairly quickly left all the other vehicles behind, and for almost 2 hours we didn't see another vehicle at all. There wasn't a lot of "special" wildlife, predominantly a variety of antelopes, as well as several hyenas. For whatever reason, most of them were quite skittish and would run off whenever we came close, but one was enjoying his mud bath too much to move and just watched us.

Finally, at almost noon, we arrived at our destination in the Kusini area. Hopefully the long trip was worth it...

[Geoff]

Very amusing lion sneezes.

[Atravelynn]

You presented an exciting, not to mention private, cheetah encounter. She knew about the reedbuck in the bush when no one watching did. That must have been very surprising. Just shows what a little elevation, which you caught nicely on the branch, can do.

 

You even got a good shot of the chestnut-banded plover. What an expression you captured on that lion's face, which says it all. "It's too hot for my liking, I'm not getting up."

[Zubbie15]

We arrived in a very nice landscape, with rocky kopjes interspersed within a fairly sparse forest. It's almost instinctive at this point that any kopje we come to we scan for wildlife, and one of the first ones we stopped at rewarded us with several lionesses relaxing on the rocks.

Move on, and scanning the rocks at other kopjes, we shortly came across a camp vehicle that was going the other direction, and they told Mussa that we should continue 500 meters up the road immediately. We located a pair of cheetah brothers, who had earlier that morning each taken down a wildebeest. From what the other vehicles that were there (4 or 5) said, apparently no one had seen the actual hunt, but that would have been quite the sight to see. They had already eaten a fair amount of one carcass, and abandoned it to the vultures, but were busy trying to eat as much as possible of the second.

He's not going to be running fast anytime soon!

After a while, the brothers retreated to the shade of a tree, and the other vehicles started to disperse. One of Mussa's friends came up to our vehicle, and said he'd seen a leopard nearby the day before, and offered to show us the tree in case it was still around. It turned out the tree was located less than 200 meters away, so the cheetah brothers were definitely pushing their luck with a pride of lions not too far in one direction, and a leopard (possibly) within sight in the other direction. We headed toward the tree, and as we approached it became apparent that the leopard, a big male, was still around.

There were wildebeest continuously passing by on the other side of the tree, so with this easy supply of food it's no wonder he would stick around.

We were encouraged that he was obviously awake, and even though it was the middle of the day hoped we might see some activity. He did give us quite a few yawns.

And a big stretch...

Before turning around and getting resettled.

We liked this spot, we were able to get closer to him for portrait photos.

Eventually, he stretched and yawned again...

Before deciding to lie down again.

At this point he closed his eyes, and we assumed he'd sleep the rest of the afternoon. Just to be safe, we got out our box lunches, and ate them while watching him.

I have to make a quick aside here - at this sighting was a British lady, alone in a vehicle with her driver Sammy (we knew her name as she'd constantly be saying things like "Sammy, why are you doing that?", "Sammy, move the vehicle," etc). She was quite the character, dressed in very bright colors and very talkative. She'd actually been staying in the same camp as us the previous two nights, and had had a discussion with my wife. When she found out we were Canadian, she told my wife how she'd been to see the Polar bears in Churchill with Natural Habitat, and how much she'd loved it. At this sighting, there were three vehicles in total; she spent most of it talking either to us, or to the other car. She told us that the leopard was impressive, but she'd been to India and seen tigers the year before and that was much more impressive. She also had come to Tanzania from Rwanda, so when she heard that we were headed there next gave us some pointers. It was just one of those amusing interactions you have on safari...

Leaving the leopard, we decided to go back past the cheetah brothers, who were still relaxing in the shade. The vultures had completely cleaned off the one carcass at this point, it was impressive. We further went back retracing our steps, when both Mussa and I noticed a second leopard in a tree not far off the road. We stopped the car and tried to reposition ourselves, but she was quite skittish and as soon as we stopped was down the tree and hidden in the bushes. I did manage a couple of photos of her getting down, but only from a distance.

This stop was actually incredibly lucky for us, as it made Mussa reconsider retracing our steps, so we decided to continue back past the first leopard...

[amybatt]

The big round belly on that cheetah! He was FULL! Wonderful leopard encounter. You struck it rich in TZ!

[Zubbie15]

The big round belly on that cheetah! He was FULL! Wonderful leopard encounter. You struck it rich in TZ!

 

Indeed @@amybatt, Tanzania treated us well. There's still more to come too...

[MR1980]

Love your report @@Zubbie15! So many great images of the animals and their surroundings!! Especially the images from Manyara, Tarangire & the Crater are very scenic with great colours. Nicely written as well by the way.

 

Cheers,

 

Michel

[Zubbie15]

Thanks for the kind words @@MR1980.

[Zubbie15]

When we were driving past the tree where we'd left the leopard sleeping, we decided to look over as we were driving by, because any view of a leopard is special. However, as I was searching the upper branches of the tree for the leopard, I couldn't locate the leopard, so I called out to Mussa that the leopard wasn't where we'd left it. We made a quick stop, and turned back toward the tree. Upon reaching the tree and going around to the other side, we found him on a low branch. People with sharp eyes may have noticed, in the wider shot I posted previously about him, that there was the partially eaten remains of a wildebeest baby on a branch. In fact, we also noticed (and you can see it in the pictures below) that there was a zebra leg also on the same branch, so apparently he'd been hanging around there for at least a few days. He started by crunching on the skull, which I have to admit is a sound I won't forget for a while, before moving on to more tender morsels. In any case, as you might imagine, we took a crazy number of photos, some of which are posted below.

All told, we spent about thirty minutes watching him eat, before he headed back up the tree, and we decided we needed to start heading back to camp. One more day in Ndutu, will we be able to find the wildebeest herds tomorrow, or will something else distract us? The answer actually ended up being yes to both.

[Zubbie15]

I got a little ahead of myself, a bit more from the leopard day. Once the leopard went back up the tree, we decided we needed to return back to camp given how far we were. I'd mentioned we had four target species this trip - my wife really wanted to see a caracal, and it turned out that one of the vehicles in the area had seen one that morning. So we slowly traveled through that area, knowing that it wasn't too likely the caracal would still be around, and we didn't have any luck, unfortunately. As we got closer, we came across a nice flock of wattled starlings, a bird we hadn't seen on our first trip but which seemed to be all over the place this time.

There was also a marabou stork in the late afternoon light.

We'd had no luck with the caracal, but when we passed by the bat-eared fox den, they were lying around on the ground. Despite the fact that they were doing their best lion impressions by lying around, it was still nice to have such a good view of them.

At camp at dinner that night, Mussa arrived at our table and told us he had some unfortunate news. I've mentioned three of our target species (serval, caracal, bat-eared fox); the fourth was wild dogs. I knew that the chances in northern Tanzania weren't particular high, although they seemed to be improving, and ever since I'd booked our trip I'd been teasing Mussa that I wanted to see wild dog. We'd heard a couple of days previously that some had been spotted in the Maswa game reserve, so there were some in the area. It turned out that a pack had been sighted near the Serian Serengeti South camp on this day, and people had been trying to raise Mussa on the radio to let him know. We wouldn't have been able to get there in any case, given the distance the sighting was from where we'd gone, but we knew they were around, and decided to make the trek down to that area (estimated by Mussa to be about 60 km) the next day.

[amybatt]

Well now, that's quite the cliffhanger to leave us with!

[Hads]

Post 113 @zubbie is amazing. What a game drive!

[Zubbie15]

Thanks @@Hads.

amybatt, on 21 Sept 2016 - 08:14 AM, said:

Well now, that's quite the cliffhanger to leave us with!

No real cliffhanger @@amybatt, in the end we weren't successful.

The next morning, we headed out with the hope that the dogs might have still been in the same area. Despite not being successful, it was quite an adventure - we were going to an area where Mussa had never been before, and so every time he had cell reception he was calling his friend that saw them the previous day to make sure we were still going the right way. It was also cool, since once we got out of the plains area near the majority of the camps, we would only see one vehicle for the next several hours - they'd actually gone the previous day to try to see the wild dogs, and had gotten stuck and had to spend the night in their truck. They certainly looked really tired...

While we didn't see many vehicles, we spent most of the drive passing through non-stop wildebeest herds. They just kept coming and coming, it was really amazing, more so because we were the only ones around.

We got to the region where the dogs had been sighted the previous day, and started searching the area. There was one other vehicle there at the same time as us, and we could see in a dry stream bed a lot of tracks, but no sign of the dogs. We eventually had to give up and start heading back, again passing through all the wildebeest herds.

There were a lot of Kori Bustards in this area, in particular males that were displaying for the females. I didn't realize it at the time, but we never actually stopped to photograph any of them, being focused on searching for the dogs.

As we got back to the main plains area, there was a group of vehicles in sight, so we detoured toward them to see what was up. There was a female cheetah with a couple of young cubs, hiding in a bush and watching a small mixed herd of zebra and wildebeest with interest.

We had some vague hopes they might decide to try to hunt, although the distance was rather large, but at one point one of the trucks watching the cheetahs decided to leave by passing directly through the herd, scattering them in the opposite direction. At that point the female seemed to be resigned that she wouldn't get a meal from them, as she stopped trying to conceal herself.

Leaving the cheetah and heading back toward our camp, we came across a few of the bat-eared foxes in the same area as before, again just hanging around.

We arrived back in camp just as the sun was setting behind the horizon, which allowed for some nice sunset photos.

So in the end there was some disappointment that we couldn't find the dogs, but it was really nice to be out alone with the big wildebeest herd so hard to complain.

[pault]

I somehow fell far, far behind on this. With you in the crater now and it's going very well, but I better check I missed nothing in between.

 

Taking from July until September to get to the Crater must be a record for a northern circuit trip report, but it's worth the wait.

[amybatt]

Unbelievable sky photos there at the end. Very nice color and composition. Sorry on the dogs, but you really nailed the gnus in migration season in TZ!

[Zubbie15]

I somehow fell far, far behind on this. With you in the crater now and it's going very well, but I better check I missed nothing in between.

 

Taking from July until September to get to the Crater must be a record for a northern circuit trip report, but it's worth the wait.

 

Indeed @@pault, this has been a drawn out trip report. Thanks for catching up.

 

Unbelievable sky photos there at the end. Very nice color and composition. Sorry on the dogs, but you really nailed the gnus in migration season in TZ!

 

Thanks @@amybatt, it was too bad about the dogs but we kenw it was unlikely heading over. Just another reason to go back to Africa.

[Zubbie15]

The next morning was our last in the southern Serengeti, as we were transferring up to the Seronera region for our final two nights. We again woke up to a lightening sky, although it petered out as the sun broke the horizon.

 

 

As we were leaving camp we heard over the radio about a pride of lions on a kill, and so made a brief detour to see what they were up to. However, by the time we arrived they'd finished with the carcass and retreated under some bushes. So we continued along, deciding to head of toward the Naabi Hill gate. Along the way, we made quick stops for photos of some herbivores, but we stuck to the main road and didn't see too much.

 

Grant's Gazelle

 

Zebra

 

We wanted to rush toward Naabi Hill so that we could have time to explore the Gol Kopjes, so we paid the extra fee at the gate and headed off in that direction. We'd hardly begun when we came across a group of vehicles parked along the side of the road, watching a female cheetah and her three cubs at a fair distance. There were some Tommy's relatively near to them, and they were unaware that the cheetahs were there. At one point, one Tommy started wandering toward the cheetahs, and the guides (according to Mussa) were joking amongst themselves that it didn't have long to live. However, the young cheetahs were obviously still learning how to hunt, and they prematurely showed themselves and the Tommy was able to get away. We were rather disappointed not to see the hunt. Once the Tommy had seen them, and left, the cheetahs got up and started to walk toward the road.

 

 

 

 

They crossed the road, and then sat down to scan the area for something to hunt. Unfortunately, nothing was visible, and so they continued along over some hills and out of view.

 

 

This was definitely a promising start to the area, we hoped it would continue with more of the same.

[traveler318]

Hello Zubbie15,

 

I haven't caught up, but I did go back and look at the dates we were in and around Ndutu and it was Feb. 13-15, so pretty close/overlapping. Those lions hung out in the trees for several days, as we saw them everyday on the way to or from our lodge. We also saw the bat eared foxes on the Kusini plains, but you got a better photo than we did.

 

I don't do trip reports, really...

 

My husband does post a photo blog:

 

http://mwillia.users.sonic.net/Matts_Travel_Blog/East_Africa/East_Africa.html

 

Can't wait to see your Rwanda pictures.

[Zubbie15]

Thanks for sharing the link @@traveler318 - if I understand the dates properly, we did the golden monkeys together, and then took the KLM flight to Amsterdam back together as well. Small world!

[Julian]

Only just read this trip report. You really had some superb sightings and your photos are wonderful - some great memories for you.

[Zubbie15]

 

 

On 9/26/2016 at 10:59 PM, Julian said:

Only just read this trip report. You really had some superb sightings and your photos are wonderful - some great memories for you.

 

Thanks @@Julian - 48 hours left in the trip, with one (in my mind) special sighting to go.

[Zubbie15]

We'd had a good start, and hadn't even reached the Kopjes yet, so once the cheetah family was out of sight we continued along. It was interesting to see how it worked in this area, once the main road started branching out the vehicles would split up and then if someone saw something they'd get on the radio to let others know.

The direction we went yielded a lionesses, who seemed to be coming from a kill based on the blood on her face and the vultures in the air.

There was a nice Martial eagle in the area, scanning the area for a meal.

We caught up again with the lioness after circling one of the kopjes, it apparently had been a tiring day.

A spotted hyena was also enjoying the day, lounging in a mudbath.

The area really was beautiful, with the rolling hills interspersed with the rocky outcroppings and the occasional tree.

At one point, we noticed a cluster of vehicles that were just over a hill, despite the fact that there were no roads in that direction. He told us that in this area, because there aren't a lot of roads, the guides will go off-road to get closer to a sighting. We had no idea how anybody would have seen anything where they currently were. We were wondering what they were looking at, but had come to the decision not to go off-road, when from another direction came a white vehicle - someone official! It was a little funny, and quite sad, to watch the off-roaders quickly start to scramble away - they obviously knew what they were doing was wrong, but did it anyway. It turned out the vehicle contained a Tanzanian cheetah researcher, and he told the guides over the radio that he wouldn't call them in to the rangers if they limited themselves to two vehicles at a time and stayed no more than 5 minutes. We decided to not go over there at this point, despite the "permission," and instead headed over to a kopje to have our lunch. After we ate, we went back along the same track, and since there were no vehicles we did decide to head over to the sighting for a couple of minutes. It turned out there was a mother cheetah with two fairly young cubs. We took a few pictures, and then decided to leave them alone and head out.

The rare two-headed cheetah...

At this point, we decided we should start heading toward Seronera, as it was the middle of the afternoon and we had a ways to go to get to camp.

[michael-ibk]

You really had fantastic sightings - and brought home wonderful photos. I especially love the landscape shots. Simply a pleasure following this report!

Edited September 27, 2016 by michael-ibk