23rd - Safari photos, other

This is just a mix of various animals spotted during the safari in random order.

Random bird of prey.

This was how popular the leopard was. Imagine 30-40 meters of road like this.



There were quite a few of these very colorful birds.

A hippo in mid-roll.

Pelikans.

Impala.

Olive baboon.

Tucan.

Ostrich.

Wildebeest.

Crocodile, one of the few we saw and the only one out of the water.

Warthogs.

This was one of the vehicles we drove around in. The roof is lifted making it possible to get "out" of the car and get a better view (and taking photos without having a window between you and the target).

Buffalo.

Zebra.

A very colorful lizard. You could find them warming themselves in the sun, and some of them let you get very close before they ran away.

Jackal.

Hyena.

Giraffe.

23rd - Safari photos, elephant

I have a lot of elephant photos so there's a chance that I still have better than these, but they have to do for now.

Can I get an "aaaawwww"?

An elephant came into the camp we stayed at before going down into the Ngorongoro crater and drank from the water supply. Apparently it's a common sight. Half an hour later a much larger elephant came and did the same. Before the first left the camp it trashed a pile of food lying out in the open and ate most of it while the owners couldn't do anything but just get out of its way and watch.

Bonus shot - elephant in the front (you can just see its back) and rhino in the rear. The two largest of The Big 5 in one shot.

23rd - Safari photos, rhino

As the rhinos where up to 1 km away, I have cut out the animals from the photos so there's a chance to see them instead of being a small speck in the distance (even more so when the photos are made smaller when uploaded to the blog), so expect grainy quality. If anyone want to see the photos in full please let me know.

The same rhino as above, but with the kid emerging (see the half back through the two right-most trunks).


A rhino that has been doping its horns?

Nope - just two parents with their kid!

23rd - Safari photos, lion

This was the only thing we saw of the lions. Just a few, right?

Something scared them, and suddently we saw this...

It's probably difficult to see from the photos, but the pride contained at least 20-30 individuals. And in the end, when the entire group had crossed the road, the male lion got up and a couple of photos were shot before he disappeared in the long grass again.

23rd - Safari

I won’t go into detail with our 5 days on safari, as it is limited how much can be built upon “we drove, we stopped, we took photos, we continued, repeat” so I will instead create posts with names of specific animals and post photos of these and maybe with a short comment on how we met it.

When we entered Serengeti NP we started by going to the administration center to be registered. After stretching our legs we started driving around, looking for animals. After app. half an hour we were still just driving and I thought of asking our driver to stop so we at least we could get some photos of the gazelles. Suddenly a shriek was heard from the back of the car – our Swedish group member Sara was sure she had seen something out in the distance, so we reversed a bit. And far out there, on a dirt mount, a single cheetah was standing and overlooking its surroundings. After a short while, we saw several other heads appear from the long grass, and we ended up seeing a mother with 4 (!) cubs from last year. We were so lucky that they actually decided to pass the road where a significant number of safari vehicles now where trying to get a good shot at them.

After seeing them passing by (and getting a bunch of photos) we continued, and it didn’t take more than a couple of minutes before we were stuck in another traffic jam – this time it was a leopard walking around – and also crossing the road. The start of the safari couldn’t have started any better. Of The Big 5, the leopard is the most difficult to find and the cheetahs are usually even harder to find – and seeing a group of 5 in that manner is apparently very rare.

We continued to drive around and saw a lot of animals we were hoping to find, and after some time, all of The Big 5 had been seen – except for the rhino. We were promised that the only chance of seeing the rhino would be in the Ngorongoro crater, where we would finish the safari.

The camp we stayed at before entering the crater had a couple of visits from elephants who came to drink from a water container. Both of them came wandering directly through the camp ignoring the people staying there. Some had their lunch stolen – never a good idea to leave such stuff lying outside when an elephant comes wandering by. Between the camp and the showers a herd of zebras where grazing, so even there a certain amount of caution was necessary.

When entering the crater the rhino was of cause the highest priority (though some of us also wanted to see some of the big cats involved in some blood and gory). We drove around and entered the only forest in the crater where we would have the biggest chance of seeing the rhino. After some driving the second car stopped, and far out to one side (800-1000 meters) a rhino could be spotted. After a while, further to the left a mother with its calf could be seen entering a small clearing, and suddenly three more were seen further to the right, chasing a group of zebras. The one the in middle (the original sighting) disappeared and then appeared a short while later, having now turned into a couple with a calf. Our guide told us that spotting a rhino was far from guaranteed, and you could come here several years in a row without seeing a single one, and now that we had seen 8 of them confirmed that we had been very, very lucky. Especially considering that the rhino population in the crater is 20-25 individuals.

Going on a safari for the first time, I consider myself being very lucky that I got to see all of The Big 5 (rhino, leopard, lion, buffalo and elephant) in one go. Even though that all the sightings of the rhinos was at a very long distance (app. 1 km give or take) it was a great experience. But sometimes you just get lucky. And I’m not complaining about that.

The dirty dozen. Well, close. We are more than a dozen, but after the safari we aren't particularly clean...