We left our camp on the Pololeti River in the Northeast Serengeti and headed for the Seronera area, located in the central Serengeti.
On the way we stopped by the Retina Hippo Pool which seems almost a zoo attraction. The Hippopotami are there all the time in large numbers. The pool is located at the confluence of the Seronera and Orangi rivers, with dense vegatation along the banks. One needs to be a bit careful walking around as you never know what might be there in the bush. While hippos look big and dumb and slow, they are responsible for more deaths in Africa each year than any of the big five, and rate second behind only the mosquito.
Hippos can't swim and float; I usually need to be reminded about that. They look like huge blubberballs, but I guess it's mostly muscle and bone and not fat. In water, they sink down and walk along the bottom; they have to come up every five minutes or so for air. But despite having to come up frequently for air, they can still sleep underwater. They have a reflex which causes them to bob up to the surface, take a breath, and then go back down without waking up! Now that would be handy on a hot day. Hippos' skin is particularly sensitive to sunlight, and the brutal African sun is too hot them. So they spend most of the day in the water, usually coming ashore only at night.
The result of all that is that when you look out at the hippo pool, you usually see a boatload of eyes, ears and noses and not much else. But they bob up and down, so sometimes it seems like there's not much out there, as in the first image below. A few seconds later, they will be all over the place, as in the second and third images.
There were mothers and babies, and lots of displays of big teeth.
We dropped our stuff at another of the Tortilis Camps, then spent the afternoon exploring. As usual, we were looking for cool birds, anything unusual, and large carnivores. We were not disappointed.
Check out the picture below. What do you see?
Yeah, me neither. One of the big clues is to look for tails hanging down. I know where it is and I still don't notice it. Douglas has very sharp eyes and years of experience. so of course he stopped and told us why. If we have another trip before I die, I'm going to request that he just stop and let us all search around for a bit.
This was a lone tree in a vast expanse of grass; imagine how difficult it would be working your way through a woodland with hundreds of trees.
The leopard was not particularly exciting, just dozing away the afternoon. So after waiting quite a while for it to perk up and go hunting we gave up and continued on. We found a nice variety of birds, from sunbirds to raptors to ostriches to waterbirds.
Whenever we came upon some buffalo I had to get my head screwed on tighter. They look so much like domestic cows that I tend to think of them that way. However, they are only distantly related to cows, and are the only species in their genus. My initial response is usuqlly to not be overly concerned, whereas when I see any of the cats or elephant I'm instantly on high alert. Yet buffalo kill more big game hunters than the rest of the big five combined (Elephants kill more people overall, as they come in contact with ordinary people like farmers and villagers more often.).
Whenever we would start out in the morning or when we were coming back in the evening, we usually scared up dki-diks. It seemed like they were hiding behind just about every bush. They are cool little animals, with what look like huge eyes, a visual effect of the large black preorbital gland in front and below the eye.
As we were heading back to camp, we came across a lioness ambling down the road with a young kitten. The youngster looked like he was going to grow up to be a big bruiser. His paws were huge and he seemed to have a nice heavy build.
We felt a bit awkward in the Tortilis camps — the accomodations were over-the-top for my idea of a tented camp, especially in terms of space. We had a large "porch" / entry where we could take off our outdoor gear, a huge main space with queen-sized bed, another room with bunk-beds which we didn't even use, a shower room, a vanity, and a separate toilet room. We could have fit the whole family in one tent and had a party to boot!
Unfortunately, it rained more during the night. A large animal "galloped" through camp, but we never figured out for sure what it was. We were hoping things would start to dry out so we could get to some of the more interesting places Douglas had in mind. Douglas talked to another driver and they decided to try to get to the Simba Kopjes. With two vehicles, one could pull the other out, in theory, if one of them got stuck. We headed that direction, stopping along to way to check out what we came across.
It was muddy, tough driving — just plain sketchy, difficult going. When we started out there were three more vehicles behind us, but soon there were only the two of us left. Douglas would stop, get out and check the road ahead, then floor it and find a way through. We leap-frogged with the other vehicle for a while, as sometimes we would have to back-track. We came to a particularly long muddy stretch; Douglas got out to check if we could get through it. There was some concern about being stuck out there, and there was no guarantee it would prove to be worth it, so we turned around and headed back towards the hippo pool. I was a bit disappointed, but it's hard to be disappointed for long in this amazing place.
On the way we found a lioness up a tree, with another lioness on the ground and three cubs. The lionesses didn't seem particularly alert, but they weren't just lazing around either. One periodically stared out over the tall grass; we couldn't see anything out there. The cubs were just laying around, not interested in their moms' activities.
We turned sideways and enjoyed watching some Brown Parrots in a nearby Sausage (Kigelia) Tree. Some of them were tearing up the fruits (sausages), but others were eating the blossoms. It was definitely a time of plenty.
There was also a mixed flock of Fischer's Lovebirds, Superb Starlings, and Buffalo Weavers, along with an occasional Beautiful Sunbird. Talk about an explosion of color!
We headed off to a nearby kopje to see what we could find. We found some warthogs but nothing much else. The road was muddy and we couldn't go much further, so we turned around and drove back the way we had come.
We checked in on the lionesses and their cubs. The cubs and the lioness in the tree were dozing. Eventually we saw a warthog some distance away, but it didn't seem too concerned. It didn't even seem to be aware of the lions, although maybe it figured it was far enough away to not be in any danger. We soon lost sight of it in the tall grass.
The lioness in the tree got up and stared out over the grass; she seemed to be focusing on a particular spot. Then she came down to the ground, circled out into the grass, and stared intently at one spot — I don't know if she could actually see anything, but she knew something was there.
The warthog turned out to be a mama, and it had some piglets.
The second lioness perked up when the first came down, and they both got engaged in the hunt. One of the cubs in the tree perked up too.
The first lioness began stalking the warthog, crouching low in the grass and slinking along. She must have been able to see it, because she would periodically freeze before continuing. We could barely see her head from our elevated position in the land cruiser, so how she, or the warthog, could see anything I don't know. Sometimes all we could see was her ears and the black tip of her tail; we'd read that one hypothesis for the black tip on the tails of cats is that it makes it easier for youngsters to follow an adult. It seemed like a plausible explanation in this case.
Then she broke into a run and we heard loud squeals. We didn't see much, just her tail in the air, and then she came up with a baby warthog in her mouth. She dropped it and killed another, and I think the second lioness was after the mother. In the end, all the warthogs were killed — or at least that's what we think. We weren't about to go check it out to be sure.
The lion cubs had perked up at all the activity, and were following things closely.
We came across a lone elephant carrying a large bone with its trunk. After a bit it seemed to start playing with it, throwing it up in the air. The bone was really big, so we guessed it was the bone of another elephant. It was all pretty strange.
As we got closer to the hippo pools we came across a bunch of Marabou Storks lined up at the water's edge, having a conference or just drying out. There was an African Fish-eagle hanging out nearby as well.
At the hippo pools I spent most of my time wandering around in the bush behind the buildings, as it was pretty good bird habitat and I had caught glimpses of some cool birds. I found a few, and missed a few more.
Then we headed back to camp, enjoying the mega-fauna along the way.
The next morning we headed out fairly early; we had a long drive from Seronera to Tarangire National Park. We stopped to check out an occasional lion or bird, but mostly we just tried to get there.
