North Serengeti – Sunrise Safari: Week 3 / Day 15 / Jan 25
Thorn Tree Camp, Serengeti: We got up before dawn this morning to head out for a sunrise safari. The stars last night as I went to bed were amazing and the milky way could be seen across the sky. Looking at the constellations last night and seeing Orion high in the sky was very confusing and not freezing my butt off was also strange (I am used to seeing Orion in the winter at home and it being below freezing). Add in the fact that the North Star was missing (we are below the equator) and the night sky is just odd down here.
Leaving the camp and hitting the road we could just begin to see some pink starting to peek over the horizon.
As we continued to drive we would occasionally see a hippo walking off in the distance.
Continuing along we eventually ended up at the same pond where we saw the hippos yesterday. However, our guide had managed to get us there before the hippos had made their way to the end of the pond. The hippos stay out of the pond all night grazing and then head back into the water shortly after sunrise. Ukadi drove us past where the mass of hippos were in the water all the way to the end of the pond. As a result we got to see the roiling, grunting mass of hippos work their way through the pond all the way to the end.
After working their way to the end of the pond the hippos settled into the muck. The pond itself seemed to be a slurry of mud and hippo poop. It had a very distinctive smell and a swirling scum layer on top. Although most of the hippos eased into the pond to relax, two pairs of males stayed back in the middle of the pond and jousted with each other for quite a while. Whenever they got a bit too out of hand, the nearby resting hippos would start to thrash and grunt until the fighting pairs settled down. We were able to see all of this action from a distance of about 40 – 50 ft.
After all of the hippos had settled down (well, the boys were still roughhousing a bit from time to time), we left the pond and headed back out into the plains. There we saw a lot of the same animals as yesterday just heading out to graze for the day, as well as the occasional stray hippo still wandering around.
When we were almost back to camp we saw a pack of mongooses looking around for something to eat and an eagle up in a tree doing the same.
Back at camp we walked past a tree that was alive with birds building their nests. The birds we saw are called Village Weavers (I think of them as Lisa Brown birds and like to imagine that they are just bored with the meeting they are in and are weaving to kill time). Each of the males build two or three nests in the tree. The females then fly by inspecting the nests and go into the nicest nest they see to mate.
As we walked from the tree to breakfast we also passed a stork that had decided to stop by our camp.
It was now time for breakfast before heading out for an entire day of safari.
Lol! I love it and clearly those birds are talented. 😊
You are getting some great shots – what kind of cameras are you using?
Lisa, thanks for the kind words about the pictures. It has been fun to do. The camera I am using is a Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ-1000. It is in between a point and shoot type camera and a DSLR. I have a DSLR at home, but it is over 10 yrs old and technology has advanced a lot. The only thing this camera is missing is a more powerful zoom, but the best one in this class (fixed lens) that has a far better zoom was about twice as expensive and I am kind of cheap.