At breakfast, the guests are again entertained by the sight of buffalo at the pool, 3 this morning! Today we will continue our game drives in the Serengeti which is vast. We are currently in central Serengeti – the woodland area with sparse acacia trees stretches for miles and as you travel east becomes savannah with only grass as far as the eye can see. Sections of the grasslands are black from prescribed fires, with new green sprouts of grass emerging. Off in the distance we can see wide plumes of smoke from new fires.
The animals are sparse in this area as they have all migrated north to the Masai Mara in Kenya and have not yet returned. The ones left behind have a difficult time hunting. Early in the morning, we see a herd of zebras and as we watch them, we notice one with gashes on his right thigh and rear end. It appears he escaped a lion attack but is going to have a hard time with these wounds. Far in the distance, a mother cheetah sits under a tree with her cubs. They are quite far away but we are delighted to spot it.
Further into the central area, we come across several safari vehicles and join them watching a leopard sprawled on a tree limb. Further up the tree on an upper limb, is his ‘kill’, an antelope that he has dragged and hung up there. We are amazed at his ability to carry this enormous animal in his mouth and get it up to the tree limb. Hanging on the sane branch is the dried backbone of a previous kill. The leopard sleeps soundly, oblivious to all the cars below. We learn that he will not eat if people are around.
We spot another cheetah sitting on a termite mound, off in the distance. Directly in front of us, a large elephant family makes its way across the plains, led by the matriarch and with several young ones in tow. They rest briefly in the shade then move on.
Our last sighting of the day is a pride of juvenile male lions with partial manes, sleeping next to and on top of each other. A pride will push male juveniles out in order to prevent inbreeding. Males will sometimes band together to form a pride. They will share a lioness or a harem, but will kill any existing cubs sired by a prior male. Lionesses will teach males to hunt but males are not good hunters. If they don’t find a lioness, a juvenile male risks dying of starvation.
The sun is quite hot in the afternoon and so we call it a day and bump our way back on the dusty roads 8 hours from when we started.
Competition appears to be fierce for safari guide companies. Every vehicle has a different company name on it. Our guide tells us that some drivers are not well trained and are somewhat unscrupulous in their behavior, such as crowding around a lion’s kill, causing the lion to run away. We see a zebra, recently killed, left in the ground with close to 10 vehicles watching. Our driver passes by muttering his frustration at this behavior which is interfering with the lion’s natural environment.