In search of the elusive leopard

Nearly all of our group went to Lake Manyara, Ngorogoro Crater and the Serengeti and you can understand why. Despite the expense, the wildlife here was definitely a trip highlight. 17 of us split up into two Landcruisers, 8 in one and 9 in the other.

Gabriel, our extremely knowledgeable guide, was accompanied by another guide, Robert, and two chefs / support crew who prepared us delicious meals with tonnes of fresh veggies and fruit.

Everyone had different requests – Karen and Shaun wanted to see a hyena, Kris wanted to see a cheetah and I wanted to see the elusive leopard. The entire month Keith and I volunteered in Thanda, we didn’t see a single leopard. We saw one briefly in 2009 and before then it had been a while since I’d seen one so I was very keen to see one again. We had three days and three different game parks to try and fulfil everyone’s requests – and we were all hoping this would be the place.

Lake Manyara National Park

Lake Manyara National Park runs along one of the Western walls of the Great Rift Valley. As continental plates separated, volcanoes erupted forming features like Ngorogoro Crater, Mt. Meru and Kilimanjaro. Here the land collapsed below the high wall as plates continued (and still continue today) to separate.

Manyara is meant to be known for its underground water forest and tree climbing lions, neither of which we saw. What we did see though are hundreds of white storks at the entrance, blue monkeys grooming each other,

dik-dik,

crowned and helmeted guineafowl,

elephant, hippos, silvery cheeked hornbill,

vervet monkeys, impala, African fish eagle, a troop of over 100 Olive baboons, one of which seemed to be removing a cramp (we were just taught to do the exact same thing in our scuba course!),

pied kingfisher, grey headed kingfisher, wildebeest, warthog, water monitor lizard, crowned crane, buffalo, zebra, pink flamingos on the lake, brown snake eagle, butterflies, bishop birds and a hammerkop. But the highlight here for me was seeing dwarf mongoose (mongeese?!) popping their heads out of holes in a termite mound one by one and then all at once, just as fascinated by us as we were by them!

The lowlight was the bloody tse-tse flies! They are back!!! Luckily I only got bitten once on the foot but it brought back memories of the tse-tse fly plague in Angola and I really didn’t want to have ANOTHER sleeping sickness test (or another ‘monster’!) It could’ve been worse though – somehow Sonny managed to get some manky bites on his arm – we think either from a fly that expels acid when it’s crushed or from something laying eggs under his skin.

Either way – not very pleasant, but fortunately antibiotic cream seems to be working for him, for now.

Ngorogoro Crater

Most of the landscape of Ngorogoro was shaped by rifts and volcanoes. Essentially a mountain collapsed, causing the crater.

25,000 animals live in the crater and it definitely shows as hardly a minute passes without seeing something.

Not long after we entered the crater, we saw a lion curling its tongue – I wondered if only some lions could do this – just like only some of us can?!

We then came across the rest of the pride lazing on the side of the road,

black backed jackal,

baboons, buffalo, ostrich,

Thomson’s gazelle, kori bustard, a silvery striped jackal, black rhino in the distance, sacred ibis, heron, yellow-billed stork, Egyptian goose, oxpeckers, blacksmith plovers, elephant, hippo, Jackson’s hartebeest, cheetah camouflaged in the yellowy grass, Superb starling, waterbuck, zebras playing around mounting and kicking each other,

a pregnant gazelle that ejected and ate its placenta right in front of us (if only we had more time to watch the birth),

spotted hyenas stalking zebra then giving up and walking right past them, a wildebeest and a warthog family (evidently they weren’t hungry or just couldn’t be bothered!),

a lake filled with pink flamingos,

and an eland, the largest living antelope (along with the giant eland).

Serengeti

The name Serengeti comes from the Maasai word ‘Serengit’, meaning land of ‘endless plains’. With kilometres of plains as far as the eye can see, you can understand why.

We witnessed the start of the migration, seeing huge herds of zebra and wildebeest congregating and slowly moving North.

There were also many herds (memories) of elephants

with cute babies,

one of which seemed to be trying to learn how to use its trunk,

zebras linking necks en masse checking for predators in both directions

and one rolling around on its back,

Agama lizards,

Superb Starlings,

mice,

topi,

hartebeest, a baboon family,

long-tailed starling,

buffalo, giraffe, impala, hippos, marabou stork, Ruppel’s vulture, batula eagle, tawny eagle, blackbacked jackals, secretary birds, gazelle, kori bustard, warthog, ostrich, cheetah, lappet-faced vulture, white-bellied bustard, white-shouldered kite, helmeted guineafowl, lilac breasted roller, bushbuck, and tonnes of hyena.

We had all wanted to see a kill and were lucky enough to come across one.Three lions had blood smeared all over their faces from gorging on the flesh of a wildebeest whose legs were splayed in the air. But not long after we arrived, they dragged it off into the safety of the bushes.

Just when we thought the day couldn’t get any better, we came across another vehicle that had found a leopard in a sausage tree!

All of us were over-excited even though it was far away, hard to see and just relaxing on a branch, looking up only once or twice. Hyenas were running past on the other side of the road but they couldn’t turn our attention away from the leopard. We reluctantly agreed to leave as we’d taken a million photos of the leopard in the same couple of positions, but then just a couple of minutes down the road, we found several vehicles bunched closely together. Almost unbelievably, it was another leopard! This one was walking by the side of the road and crossed it right in front of us! It then started stalking some gazelle and crept up on them quite successfully despite the wildebeest and birds flying overhead making warning calls. A noisy maintenance truck drove past and sadly the leopard lost the element of surprise so it gave up on the now alert gazelle, and instead went on the search for new, unsuspecting prey. The sun had started to set and sadly we couldn’t stay and watch it any longer as we would’ve been fined by the rangers if we were there after dark.

It just so happened to be Karen’s birthday and everyone agreed it was a pretty incredible one – with not only the hyena she wanted to see, but also a lion kill, cheetah, leopards, and a cake, all in the middle of the Serengeti!

In Ngorogoro and Serengeti combined, we saw 90 elephants, 35 giraffe, 21 lions, 17 hyena, 6 cheetah, 6 jackals, and 2 leopards. So, Karen and Shaun definitely saw enough hyena, Kris sawhis cheetah and I saw my two leopard in just one evening! A-MA-ZING! Gabriel joked he had all of the animals on speed dial and called them to ensure we would see them. Whatever the reason, we couldn’t have asked for anything more.