Serengeti National Park South Entrance
We left the Ndutu area after having three great days where we saw an incredible amount of wildlife — literaly millions wildebeests, along with large herds of zebra, numerous lions, leopards, cheetahs, and some great birds. Now we were headed to the northeast Serengeti where we hoped to have some more intimate encounters with wildlife while walking.
We drove north to the Naabi Hill Gate, where we checked in. While Douglas dealt with the paperwork, we checked out some of the local residents.
There were a log of Blue-capped Cordonbleu in the shrubbery around the Visitors' Center at the Naabi Hill gate. They're always a delight to run into, being so colorful and not particularly shy.
We hiked the short trail to the top of Naabi Hill, where there is a view of the surrounding plains. It must be quite a sight when the wildebeests are passing through, but now they were mostly down in the Ndutu area. However, the resident Mwanza Flat-headed Agamas were much in evidence, and there may have been some other types.
The agama below is in the process of molting (ecdysus). The semi-transparent whitish patches are the old skin; the colored scales below are the new.
I'm not sure what kind of agamas the below are; possibly female Flat-headed.
The two animals below look to be different, but we're not certain what they are. The one on the left may be a female agama. Dona thinks the one on the right may be a Maasai girdled lizard; however, it's difficult to find reliable images to compare it with. The Kenya Reptile Atlas has a download for Plated, Girdled and Monitor Lizards which has a good description and image. The picture below doesn't seem to have the "strongly keeled" body scales described, and the tail seems to be too fat.
We were hoping that with all the recent rain we would see lots of wildflowers, but we didn't find too many on our short hike up the hill.
We left the busy Naabi Hill gate area and headed north across the seemingly endless Serengeti plains. We came to a place where a small creek passed under the road and found a group of five lionesses who were clearly not getting along. One of them was injured, and the others were giving her a rough time, growling at her and trying to prevent her from getting access to the water. The injured lioness looked gaunt, and we guessed maybe she had recently lost her place as the alpha female.
We headed off the main road on a round-about route and came upon a small herd of elephants. They were headed to a small waterhole, where everyone enjoyed a good mudbath, especially the babies.
A ways further on we came across a couple of African (Cape) Buffalo ("Mbogo" in Swahili) wallowing in a mudhole too. A good coating of mud is an effective deterrent to biting flies.
There were plenty of Hippopotami in the river. They always look like they are floating but they don't really float — they sink to the bottom, and they can't swim. Instead, they sink and walk along the bottom of the river, then push off to propel themselves back to the surface. So they can't just loll around enjoying the warm water. They have to be more-or-less constantly moving, albeit slowly.
We stopped and ate our lunch at the Seronera ranger station, where we watched Rock Hyraxes and Slender Mongooses. There was also a melanistic slender mongoose there. Because it is heritable and can be an adaptive advantage, melanism is found in a wide array of animals. Mongooses are pretty amazing, in that they can kill large venemous snakes, snakes much larger than they are. They do this by biting the snake in the skull, killing it almost instantly. They are able to do this because they are partially tolerant of snake venom and are extremely fast and can avoid most snake bites.
It was a long drive up to our camp on the Pololeti River. Dona and I had been here on our previous walk, and it is one of our favorite places. I had thought the Pololeti was a tributary of the Seronera Rivera, but I learned from Douglas that it is a tributary of the Grumeti.
After we got to camp Douglas told us the camp crew had seen lions just west of camp on their way in. We were delighted ... but also wondering how we would deal with that in the tall grass. He asked us to stay within a pretty small boundary around camp; it was pretty difficult to see what was out there because of the tall grass, and there was evidence lions had been pretty close to camp before we got there.
After an excellent dinner, we gathered on the rocks near camp for a briefing. We were really lucky, as we would have two guides with us as well as an armed ranger. Our other guide was Toroiya, who grew up with the Maasai and spent his younger years exploring this area on foot, traveling across the Serengeti before it was a park, stealing cattle from neighboring tribes.
Toroiya would lead, armed with his bow and arrows; followed by Douglas armed with a rifle; and our park ranger, James, also armed, would take up the rear. We would travel single file, and keep conversation to a minimum. The primary reason for traveling single file is that if the first person makes it, the path can be deemed "safe". In the tall grass this was particularly important. Douglas then went over hand signals for stop, back up, get down, and a few others.
The next morning we started out on a short walk. I was still dealing with my broken foot from falling off the arena roof, and was happy to be towards the rear and let others smash down the grass to make traveling easier.
We didn't see a lot of animals, and nothing very close. We saw topi, hartebeest, impala, rock and tree hyrax, baboons and monkeys, klipspringers, African buffalo, and some distant giraffes. We found an old leopard kill in a tree, and tracked where lions had been the previous day. Douglas and Toroiya often stopped and signaled to each other about what they were seeing and which way to go; it was amazing to see the things Toroiya picked up. I would have blundered along and gotten eaten, no matter how careful I thought I was being.
In the afternoon we took a walk upriver. We had some new birds but didn't get any pictures. We found some elephant sign, but had to return to camp as it had gotten pretty late.
Dona's right hand started bothering her, and was getting pretty swollen. She thought it was a secondary infection from a tse-tse fly bite she got while in the car the day before.
We had a nice evening sunset and enjoyed it sitting on some of the rocks near camp. Then dinner around the campfire and we were off to bed. I was tired and my feet were pretty sore.
The next day we drove downriver to another spot to walk. On the way we found a big pride of lions and another small bunch, a herd of 25 or more elephants with youngsters, a big herd of African buffalo, and impala, hartebeest, topi and warthogs.
When we came upon the first group of lions my gut just dropped. Even though we were in the vehicle, I was thinking about walking along the two-track we were on. The grass along the side of the rode was pretty tall. All of a sudden there were pairs of ears out there in the grass, not very far away. At first I saw two pairs, and then three. In fact there were five, I just couldn't see two more — the two who were watching the five kittens who were also out there. What if I'd been walking, and they hadn't had their heads up? What if I'd been walking, and they did have their heads up? They were only maybe two seconds of lion stride away.
How many lions do you see in the above picture? I see four. but I'm not sure how many there really were... When they're down in the grass with only part of a head or ears showing, lions look pretty much like the top of a small worn down termite mound. And there are small worn down termite mounds all over the place.
Not far from the first bunch of lions, the elephants were spread out in a shallow creek bottom, slowly working their way down the valley.
We came across more lions down in the grass, and again had to think about "what if..."
I'm pretty sure that thing in the upper left below is another lion.
Like most people in Africa, Toroiya didn't throw things away as they got worn. His knife sheath had apparently been cut through near the tip, but he just epoxied it back together. It looked like it had been that way for quite a while.
It seems like all the vegetation in Africa has thorns, and all sorts of animals have adapted. We found some acacias with ping-pong ball sized galls on some of their thorns. Apparently there are several species of ants which inhabit the galls and attack animals which try to eat the leaves.
We had about a two hour walk in the morning, then returned to camp. In the afternoon Dona, Uri and I headed out with Douglas and Toroiya but after a short ways it started raining so we turned around. We were wet and bummed, as we had been looking forward to the evening walk. We spent the time instead drying our clothes over the fire.
Douglas and Toroiya had some pretty good stories around the fire at dinner. Toroiya told about growing up wandering around the area, avoiding people pursuing him after he had stolen cattle from them. He told us about what he was taught by his Maasai elders if he ran into a lion when he didn't have a spear — they should lie down in the tall grass, and if the lion approached, shake the grass so it rustles the way it does when a snake is in it. Lions don't like snakes. Uh ... huh. Yeah ...
Well, one day Toroiya and a friend were out in the vast Serengeti plains and they came across a lion. The lion saw them and they froze. Toroiya's friend wanted to run, but Toroiya told him "No! Remember what the elders said."
So ...
They lay down in the tall grass ...
and waited.
The lion approached ...
...
... and they shook the grass.
...
The lion paused ...
reconsidered ...
and slowly went away.
Hooo - boy. I forgot to ask him how long they lay in the grass before getting up and heading on ... home?
The next morning Dona's hand was badly swollen. We didn't have what she thought she needed in our first-aid kit, so we talked with Douglas about what he had in his first-aid kit. He didn't have what she needed either. We talked about driving back to Seronera for meds. Fortunately, a while later Douglas remembered he had another "walking" first-aid kit. By a minor miracle, he had just what she needed in it — amoxicillin. By evening her hand was much better.
Several days later as we were driving from the Serengeti down to Tarangire we stopped in a town and found a drugstore, where we replenished Douglas's supply of amoxycillin. I think we bought half the box the druggist had for about $2, keeping a little for our own kit.
Dona, Sid, Uri and I headed out with Douglas, Toroiya and James. Ram and Dawn stayed in camp to take pictures of the Fischer's Lovebirds which were in abundance in some trees by the rocks and the river near camp.
We found several nice groups of elephants, but they were down wind of us; they caught our scent and started moving away slowly. We made a big circle and found a small family group which wasn't too nervous. We had a small rock kopje we could hide behind so we got some good views of them. Later we found some Mbogo (African Buffalo), Topi and Impala.
We found a really cool Garden Orb Web Spider.
The next morning we packed up and said goodbye to the Pololeti River area. I was sad to leave, but the weather had made walking difficult. I think I could spend a whole year there, wandering about carefully.
We said goodbye to our camp crew — Karim, Godfrey and Fidel; to James, our Serengeti ranger; and to Toroiya, a walking guide extraordinaire.
On the drive out we saw yet more animals.
Our next stop was the Seronera area, where we would look for more big cats.
