THE SERENGETI, A MAGICAL PLACE TO SEE WILFLIFE, Guest Post by Karen Minkowski

Female leopard with her cub, Serengeti National Park, Tanzania.

My friend Karen Minkowski has visited Africa many times and has contributed often to The Intrepid Tourist, sharing her beautiful photographs and insights about animals. She recently went to northern Tanzania, visiting four national parks: Lake Manyara, Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, and Tarangire. This is the second of her four reports of that trip. 

The Serengeti is magical, a magnet, one of the best places on earth. It seems at times, as the Maasai thought when they named it Siringet, that it really does go on forever and ever – infinity on earth. Here is some of what we saw.

Cheetahs.

These cheetahs may be brothers; we wondered if there were hiding from lions, as they remained reclining, partially obscured by grass, for a long time.

Later that afternoon, a clump of nine or ten Land Cruisers ahead alerted us to something interesting. A group of stopped vehicles is a common way of finding predators, especially, when driving through a wildlife area.

Two leopard cubs wrestled and snuggled and finally looked in the direction of their mother, who was not in our line of sight. When the cubs disappeared amidst the rocks and vegetation, our guide moved the vehicle to where we could see her perched high upon a rock. 

Leopard cubs.

Leopard cubs.

Female leopard.

It’s not common to see a leopard with her cubs, so we were lucky when they briefly joined their mother. We watched as one cub or the other, sometimes both, spent a few seconds in her presence, as though just checking in with her.

We’d seen five species of cats in just a few days: lion, serval, wild cat, cheetah and leopard. Our version of the Big Five! (Traditionally the Big Five are lion, leopard, elephant, black rhino and Cape buffalo. We did see all but the black rhino.)

A lovely giraffe in a woodland.

Zebras at the river.

Impalas.

Male impalas nuzzling. They eventually put their foreheads together and gently practiced fighting, skills they might one day need.

Practice fighting.

A couple of new birds for me: von der Decken’s Hornbill and the Coqui Francolin. (I was last in the Serengeti in 1971, so I may have seen these birds before and forgotten them.) Both are males.

Decken's Hornbill.

Coqui Francolin.

Kirk's Dik-Dik, a tiny antelope about 16 to 18 inches in height.

Hippos are common where there is water deep enough to cover their enormous bodies. Such sweet faces!

Hippos.

Lion drinking.

Lions Mating.

Wildebeeste migration.

We saw a little of the wildebeest migration heading north towards the Maasai-Mara in Kenya.  

Note: Next week will be Karen's report on her visit to Ngorogoro Crater National Park.