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twoelevenI finally have all my photos of the serengeti worked up. these are my top twentyish of the ones I took from the ground, along with some I took while on a balloon ride over the area. there's plenty more where these came from, and the whole bunch was reduced from over a thousand exposures. auto-shutter is good for that sort of thing, as is lots of animals to look at.
as with the overall trip, getting to serengeti was… interesting. we started in the adjacent ngorongoro conservation area, and drove on back routes to get to serengeti. our guide is familiar with the area, and took us by the direct route, rather than driving north to the main east-west highway, and then coming south again to our camp.
the direct route started on narrow gravel roads, then switched to dirt roads, and eventually just jeep trails – two ruts cut into the landscape – as we drove though maasai grazing areas. the ruts turned into cattle trails, and then eventually cross country driving:
somewhere our guide had followed the wrong cattle trail, and we ended up asking a boy herding cows for directions. given how remote the area was, we've been imagining that the story of him helping a wealthy safari™ guide and his two white tourists was the talk of the village for weeks.
of course, being pointed to the right cattle trail did mean we were still on a cattle trail. eventually, we picked up another pair of ruts, which led us distantly past the ndutu airstrip, and on into serengeti, where most of the roads are, in fact, just jeep trails. even the road to the airstrip is a just dirt road.
this hoopoe was one of the two animals I spotted that we otherwise wouldn't have seen; we were driving past it when I asked our guide to stop and tell me what the little birdie was. he was thrilled to see it so close; they're apparently not that common in the serengeti.
these guys are so rarely seen that I didn't even put them on my wish list. they're strictly nocturnal hunters, and night driving in the tanzanian national parks requires difficult to get permits.¹ we think they were flooded out of their den by torrential rains the night before we saw them:
1: people used to spotlight animals, which isn't good for them, and even if we're not doing that, if no legitimate visitors are driving at night, anybody seen is a poacher, and can be dealt with without warning. which is good, because some of them have automatic rifles.
some of the eight(!) cheetahs we saw:
these guys, and their smaller dik-dik relatives, are so cute that they look like they'd make great pets. but they're probably too skittish and delicate for that.
these starlings were everywhere. at home, all the starlings are dull things.
look! uncharismatic microfauna!
…and really hideous other fauna:
the balloon ride provided lots of interesting views; I rarely see birds or large animals from above.
this dragon appears to have crash landed:
despite seeing many lions in the serengeti – most just lying around after having eaten – these were the only maned male lions we saw. youth mortality for all the great cats is brutal.
they were part of a pride with a bunch of female lions, so they're either older and younger brothers or father and son.
these shots provide a idea of how large the wildebeestie herds are, and provide a fine definition of "many":
since i'm posting all the pictures from serengeti, this is our tent. it's huge, 20'x12':
past the curtain is the bathroom; toilet to the left, shower to the right:
the camp is migratory, but the folks in charge had rigged up temporary plumbing fed from a water tower. so we had running water, but it wasn't potable. drinking water came in water-cooler jugs. they also had a simple power grid fed by a small solar farm and battery array behind the dining tent. we'd been told to expect more typical high-end camping: chemical toilets, camp showers, and portable solar-powered lights. we were amazed by what we got.
these aren't quite all the serengeti pictures. there's the other animal I spotted, which goes with a story; about a million pictures of floppy, well-fed lions; and a bunch of pictures of scavengers fighting over an ex-wildebeestie, which i'm trying to decide what to do with. they're good photos, but as gory as you'd expect.
as with the overall trip, getting to serengeti was… interesting. we started in the adjacent ngorongoro conservation area, and drove on back routes to get to serengeti. our guide is familiar with the area, and took us by the direct route, rather than driving north to the main east-west highway, and then coming south again to our camp.
the direct route started on narrow gravel roads, then switched to dirt roads, and eventually just jeep trails – two ruts cut into the landscape – as we drove though maasai grazing areas. the ruts turned into cattle trails, and then eventually cross country driving:
somewhere our guide had followed the wrong cattle trail, and we ended up asking a boy herding cows for directions. given how remote the area was, we've been imagining that the story of him helping a wealthy safari™ guide and his two white tourists was the talk of the village for weeks.
of course, being pointed to the right cattle trail did mean we were still on a cattle trail. eventually, we picked up another pair of ruts, which led us distantly past the ndutu airstrip, and on into serengeti, where most of the roads are, in fact, just jeep trails. even the road to the airstrip is a just dirt road.
this hoopoe was one of the two animals I spotted that we otherwise wouldn't have seen; we were driving past it when I asked our guide to stop and tell me what the little birdie was. he was thrilled to see it so close; they're apparently not that common in the serengeti.
these guys are so rarely seen that I didn't even put them on my wish list. they're strictly nocturnal hunters, and night driving in the tanzanian national parks requires difficult to get permits.¹ we think they were flooded out of their den by torrential rains the night before we saw them:
1: people used to spotlight animals, which isn't good for them, and even if we're not doing that, if no legitimate visitors are driving at night, anybody seen is a poacher, and can be dealt with without warning. which is good, because some of them have automatic rifles.
some of the eight(!) cheetahs we saw:
these guys, and their smaller dik-dik relatives, are so cute that they look like they'd make great pets. but they're probably too skittish and delicate for that.
these starlings were everywhere. at home, all the starlings are dull things.
look! uncharismatic microfauna!
…and really hideous other fauna:
the balloon ride provided lots of interesting views; I rarely see birds or large animals from above.
this dragon appears to have crash landed:
despite seeing many lions in the serengeti – most just lying around after having eaten – these were the only maned male lions we saw. youth mortality for all the great cats is brutal.
they were part of a pride with a bunch of female lions, so they're either older and younger brothers or father and son.
these shots provide a idea of how large the wildebeestie herds are, and provide a fine definition of "many":
since i'm posting all the pictures from serengeti, this is our tent. it's huge, 20'x12':
past the curtain is the bathroom; toilet to the left, shower to the right:
the camp is migratory, but the folks in charge had rigged up temporary plumbing fed from a water tower. so we had running water, but it wasn't potable. drinking water came in water-cooler jugs. they also had a simple power grid fed by a small solar farm and battery array behind the dining tent. we'd been told to expect more typical high-end camping: chemical toilets, camp showers, and portable solar-powered lights. we were amazed by what we got.
these aren't quite all the serengeti pictures. there's the other animal I spotted, which goes with a story; about a million pictures of floppy, well-fed lions; and a bunch of pictures of scavengers fighting over an ex-wildebeestie, which i'm trying to decide what to do with. they're good photos, but as gory as you'd expect.
no subject
Date: Apr. 30th, 2022 02:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: May. 1st, 2022 03:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: May. 1st, 2022 03:40 am (UTC)and these are only the first set of photos. there's three more national parks worth of photos, along with some from kilimanjaro, though we were in the serengeti the longest.