The Endless Plains, Chapter 3: In Search of the Elusive Caracal part 1

Tuesday Morning 16th Sept

 These are our first twilight photos.

Dawn in the Serengeti. The first taken at 6am, the next, half an hour later.

Our previous evening had lacked any sunset colours, apart from a muddy shade of grey. This morning there were only a few small few clouds. More would appear later to shed their torrential rain. Mostly, lucky for us, deposited on the Maasai Mara to our north.

A fundamental reason for us visiting this area of the Serengeti was to search for a Caracal. These cats are, as we have found out, extremely difficult to find. They may not be an endangered species, but they are not very big (large domestic cat size with longer legs) and they simply just don't want to be seen. The slightest hint of humans and they're gone. We had been trying to find one for years and we knew that our chances were slim.

The Eastern Serengeti is an ideal environment for them. The grass at the end of the dry season is short and looks dead, making it easier to spot our prey. Easier verging on impossible. This week would be our greatest chance, but asking around many other guides, few had ever seen one. We had six days to test our luck. Spin the coin.

We had not gone very far in our search when, instead of Caracal, we found other cats. At about 7am we came across part of a pride of lions. The youngest cubs were very thin. At this stage of the Serengeti seasons, food is is more difficult to come by. This was part of the normal cycle of life here and soon the food supply would be replenished as the great migration of wildebeest approached.

This young male posed well in the rising sunlight. Posing for a 'golden hour' portrait.

Posing, yes. Hunting, no. I tried to explain that we were after some of the blood and guts included in the deal...

This Tawny Eagle was after very much the same thing.

Sadly, waiting for him to take off for some acrobatic photography was too hard on my trigger finger. He carefully waited until the moment I put my camera down with finger fatigue before flying off. 

These nest-making Secretary Birds looked on whilst a male lion arrived.

And it was still only 7:45am

A handsome beast, but no way was he doing any hunting today. That's women's work.

Giving up on waiting for bloodshed, we came across this handsome beast freshly dried out from a luxurious mud-pack therapy session. 

It certainly brought out his better features...

And then... guess what.

And it was still only eight o'clock in the morning...

And all is well

The Endless Plains. Chapter 2. A Highlight in Low Light.

Monday Afternoon 15th Sept

It was getting late on our first afternoon in the Serengeti. We needed showers, food and wine, but not necessarily in that order. 

As we were heading to the camp we spotted these cheetahs. A family of five, a mother and four cubs. The father, as usual, was absent without leave. In fact, you never see a male and female together unless they are undergoing marriage guidance counselling. 

It was a quarter to six and the sun was very low (sunrise at 6:30am, sunset at 6:30pm) and behind clouds.

Yes, they have clouds in Africa.

It was meant to be the dry season, but everything was out of kilter.

The season of 'small rains' (Mvuli) had started two months early. This is being blamed on human caused climate change. On the other hand it could be God's way of showing his contempt for unbelievers...

This had totally confused the wildebeest, who, let's face it, live a life of continual confusion anyway.

We were told that they had already crossed the river Mara into the Maasai Mara, and had already returned back into the Serengeti! There were none left on the Kenyan side, therefore we would see no Mara crossings. The whole point of us being there. Apart from all the other stuff of course.

They were, thankfully, talking bulls**t.

Anyway, I seem to have drifted away from the point of this blog. What about the cheetahs?

As the 'small rains' season was starting, the clouds were interfering with my photography.

This was meant to be 'the golden hour'. The best time to take photos.

Not today. Shooting a moving target in the near dark is a little tricky. 

You do know I mean with a camera don't you?

Anyway, these guys played close to the van. They could care less about us.

It was a privileged experience. 

For us I mean.

There are a few tricks to wildlife photography. You've got to be in the right place at the right time. This would normally mean hanging around for hours waiting for the sleeping predator to yawn. You need the right guide. You need to understand your camera's settings. You need a good lens that sucks in as much light as possible. And you need luck. 

We were lucky enough to be at the right place at the right time with the right guide on our very first day. We only lacked adequate light. And flashes are not allowed. Predators can get very angry if flashes are used. They may well direct their anger at you. That is quite a good deterrent.

Tricky huh?

Therefore I took as many pictures as I could in the random hope that some of them would look ok. I knew that this opportunity might never happen again. What are the chances of us seeing another family of cheetahs? 

Well, as it turns out...

After half an hour with these stunning creature, the lighting had reduced to that of a dull candle. So we headed off to the Olmara camp, arriving, as we always did, late.

Every day we arrived late. There was always that one last thing to do.

A delicious meal later, a few glasses of wine, then collapse into a coma for the night.

Except for the occasional pee....

Next: Chapter 3: In Search of the Elusive Caracal

The Endless Plains

 The Serengeti, a Maasai word meaning 'the Endless Plains'.

Prepare yourself for the most unbelievable safari ever, with endlessly amazing wildlife and danger on every side. From heart-wrenching experiences to moments of rapture. See nature as never before!

Or

Just read this blog.

Introduction

I am now quite an old hand at safaris (other parts of me are rapidly following suit), but even I have been taken aback by the adventures that are soon to flow onto these pages.

This was to be a safari of two halves. In the first part of this crazy fortnight, we spend a week in the Eastern Serengeti, where the scenery is flat and fairly featureless (thus 'the endless plains'). There is, to counter that, endless hungry beasts.

An awful lot of hungry beasts.

In the second part we visit the Northern Serengeti, with a much more varied terrain and, above all, the notorious river Mara (aka the Bloody Mara). We timed our visit to be there to give us the greatest chance of seeing the two million plus wildebeest and zebra plunge headlong into the crocodile-infested waters of the Mara. Things did not turn out exactly as we had planned. ‘Things’ are like that.

As usual, contact with the outer world became difficult, with my phone declaring bankruptcy within an hour of landing. Annick found a way around this, delaying bankruptcy for a further few days.

In this short two week period we bore witness to an enormous range of animal activity. Animal activity sometimes impacted by the effects of human activity, with even the timing of the seasons being altered by man's hand.

I was not prepared for the shear volume of sightings. This was like no other safari I have done and I was totally ill-equipped for the number of photos I took. This lack of foresight led to a serious lack of photo storage space, overfilling my laptop, crashing my backup drive, and leaving me in floods of tears. All I have to do now is piece them all together and then edit them. 

All twenty four thousand of the bloody things...

........

Chapter One: Arrival

Saturday 14th Sept 

Our trip to the Serengeti started as usual by landing at Kilimanjaro airport via Amsterdam from Toulouse. The flights had been uneventful, lacking any hijacking, exploding engines, plummeting to earth screaming or unpleasant intestinal complications.

Ian, our friend and long-term guide, picked us up as usual and, as usual, we miraculously survived the journey to his home in Arusha (traffic regulation here is not only poorly enforced, it is widely ignored) where I was proven not to be a mastermind...

Here we stayed for two nights, recovering from jet lag. There is, after all, an enormous one-hour time difference between Tanzania and France.

Monday 15th Sept

To get to the Serengeti National Park we travelled by safari truck from Arusha via Lake Manyara and the Ngorongoro national parks.

Littering the roadside for many miles are upbeat fashionable boutiques such as these:

And here, at lake Manyara, once more we see the detrimental effects of us humans. 

This time due to the local tribal people whose effluent and other waste is clogging up the lake, causing it to flood everywhere with polluted muck. No longer a place to visit. Well done us.

The result of not caring for your environment.

We then took a one minute break at the rim of the Ngorongoro crater to photograph its magnificence. 

It is impossible to take in its vastness, so this photo will have to do, inadequate as it is.

Between the crater and Serengeti is a large park inhabited by Maasai relocated from the crater itself. This has not worked out well.

The area they were shoved into is now needed as a wildlife reserve, so attempts at being further relocated are ongoing.

These Maasai are all clothed in traditional wear, carry traditional spears, speak traditional Maa and Swahili, communicate with traditional portable phones.   😳

This tool of mass public suppression is everywhere.

Since being relocated, the Maasai population here has grown from 10,000 to 100,000. Most are still living here...

Despite travelling at speed along a track with more potholes than your average UK road, and having to avoid the slings and arrows of misfortune, we did spot the occasional signs of wildlife.

Arriving at the Serengeti mid-afternoon did not leave us much time to search out interesting animal life, thus we were expecting to see little.

We were, as usual, wrong.

After a little twitching, 

Rock Kestrel

Lappet-faced Vulture

and the occasional warthog or two…

we soon came across a pride of lions.

Then the boss arrived… 

A truly magnificent beast. 

But then the real boss arrived…

We, too, were soon to arrive at our destination (the Olmara Camp) when we came across this crazy sight: 

A cheetah with her four cubs!

All this within hours of arrival. This was shaping up to be a safari that uses the word amazing too much.

Next chapter arriving soon with a lot of cute and cuddly cheetah pix...Chapter 2