On our trip with CNP Safaris in mid-April, on the last afternoon of our trip we decided to travel up the Chobe river past Elephant Valley to have a look at the section of the river that flows passed Serondela. I have been up to this part of the river many times before but never when the water levels were so high. So we were all intrigued to see how the high water had changed the river bank – we were in for a big surprise!

“I arise today
Through the strength of heaven:
Light of sun,
Radiance of moon,
Splendour of fire.
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of wind,
Depth of sea,
Stability of earth,
Firmness of rock.”

~Saint Patrick

Just past the Chobe Savannah Lodge on the Namibian side of the river, we found this vivid Southern Red Bishop perched on a reed. It is unusual to see a shimmering red colour along the river bank, so we drifted closer.

This little character watched us and seemed quite content on his perch in the sun. Surprisingly, you do not find many Red or Yellow Bishops along the river bank despite many patches of reeds which are ideal for nest sites.

For those of you who have not been along this part of the Chobe river, you will not realise how unusual and how high the water level was. It was two or perhaps even three metres higher than the normal mid-summer level.

“You didn’t come into this world. You came out of it, like a wave from the ocean. You are not a stranger here.”

~Alan Watts

These trees normally do not have their feet in the water.

Further up river we came across a pair of Lilac Breasted Rollers. They had a nest in a dead tree stump which they were jealously guarding against all comers, from boats to fish eagles.

A fish eagle was perched on a dead tree close by and this pair of rollers dive bombed as they saw it as a threat.

You can see from this fish eagle’s full crop that it was just perched, soaking up the afternoon warmth and was no threat to the rollers.

These are exquisitely beautiful rollers especially when they open up their wings. I have never seen Broad-billed or Purple Rollers along this part of the Chobe river.

A little further along we found a few Green-backed Herons. They seem to be less skittish along this part than further down river closer to Kasane.

  

Normally, when travelling on the boat you would never be able to see over the river banks.

“Your deepest roots are in nature. No matter who you are, where you live, or what kind of life you lead, you remain irrevocably linked with the rest of creation.”

~Charles Cook

The width of the river widened considerably creating new open patches of water in some places and in others, new channels.

Down along this densely tree-lined section of the Chobe river close to Serondela, we found a small flock of Black Crowned Night Herons. This is the resident family on this part of the river. They are usually crepuscular and nocturnal, so it is unusual to see them in the early afternoon. They normally start emerging from the deep shade around last light.

Along this section of the river the bank is lined with Natal Mahogany, Jackal-berry and Rock-fig trees. The rock-figs seemed to like their feet in water and their contorted, exposed roots systems conjure up images of the “Ents” in Tolkien’s ‘Lord of the rings’.

The Serondela section of the Chobe river is lined with a dense grove of trees for about two kilometres. Then it opens up onto flood plains and sandbanks.

There is nothing at Serondela other than a camp site but is a marker for the outer reaches for our afternoon journey. On our way back we stopped to photograph this majestic fish eagle who put on quite a show for us.

It is one of nature’s miracles and immaculate engineering to be able to unpack a wing of such immense size and structure with the fingers of an artist feeling the wind.

We found one lone “dagga-boy” standing on top of a sand bank chewing the cud, accompanied by a bevy of Red-billed Oxpeckers. This old buffalo bull was vulnerable along this section as it is well-known for its lion activity.

A White-crowned Lapwing flew with us along the river’s edge for about one hundred metres.

It was making sure that we got out of its territory.

 

On the way back to Kasane, just past the densely lined treed section near Serondela, the trees thinned out towards Puku Flats. Normally, we would not be able to see the elephants on the far side of the river. Just beyond the water lilies is usually dry land.     

Two young elephant bulls jostling with each other. It was hot and the clouds were building but it never rained. The clouds provided a wonderful, dramatic background.

Again, for those who have been along this stretch of the Chobe, you will be amazed at how high the water level was. It would not take too much more to completely flood Puku Flats.

On our way back to Kasane just past Elephant Valley, we came a cross a small family of Kudu which had come down to drink and en route were browsing on the lush vegetation close to the water’s edge.

It was late afternoon and soft pinks and purples began to colour the sky and water.

The evening colours start to reveal themselves as the sun started to set softening its strong light. This is a sublime part of the early evening when you want to just sit, be quiet and appreciate the exquisite beauty.

“I am in love with this world . . . I have climbed its mountains, roamed its forests, sailed its waters, crossed its deserts, felt the sting of its frosts, the oppression of its heats, the drench of its rains, the fury of its winds, and always have beauty and joy waited upon my goings and comings.”

~John Burroughs

Just before the sun sets the colours in the sky intensify, a colour-filled climax where there is greater contrast and drama in the sky.

By this point we are almost back at the lodge at Kasane. The sun had set but the sky was on fire.

I hope this sequence of  images convey the mood, diversity and at times, unusual scenes we were fortunate to experience and photograph that afternoon. I always come away from times like these on the river with deep gratitude for the privilege of being able to see such abundance and beauty.

“For the 99 percent of the time we’ve been on Earth, we were hunter and gatherers, our lives dependent on knowing the fine, small details of our world. Deep inside, we still have a longing to be reconnected with the nature that shaped our imagination, our language, our song and dance, our sense of the divine.”

~Janine M. Benyus

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

The Chobe National Park supports one of the largest concentrations of elephants in the world, estimated at around 120,000. The elephant population is dispersed throughout northern Botswana.

“Go out, I beg of you

And taste the beauty of the world.

Behold the miracle of the earth

With all the wonder of a child.”

~ Edna Jacques

The Chobe National Park can be divided into four eco systems, the Chobe river front in the north-east, Savute in the west,  Linyanti swamps (similar to the Okavango) in the north-east, and the hot dry area inbetween. We were based on the Chobe river front, photographing in the section of river between Kasane and Serondela. The Chobe river front area receives an estimated 35,000 to 55,000 elephants depending on the season.

Females stay together in family groups while males either form small bachelor groups or wander off on their own. The next image is of a lone bull browsing on the lush vegetation  just down river from Elephant Valley. The river bank is steep along this section of the river. We don’t often see much game along this part, as there is no escape route and it is dangerous to drink along this river bank because the water is deep and a thirsty animal would never see a crocodile coming.

An elephant’s trunk is a remarkable piece of its anatomy. An elephant uses its trunk much like an arm. The tip of the trunk effectively works like a hand and is capable of great nimbleness and dexterity. The African Elephant has two prehensile fingers at the tip of its trunk whereas the Asian Elephant has just one.

“Nature is man’s teacher. She unfolds her treasure to his search, unseals his eye, illumes his mind, and purifies his heart; and influence breathes from all the sights and sounds of her existence.”

~Alfred Billings Street

An elephant’s trunk has over 40,000 muscles and can hold up to eight litres of water in one draw. It is immensely strong and is capable of pushing down trees and picking up the smallest twig. Its trunk is one of the elephant’s primary sensory organs. When an elephant senses danger is usually lifts its trunk up in the air to get a better idea of the nature of the threat from its smell and its direction on the wind.

These are emotionally sensitive animals with strong family ties and long memories.

Adult elephants weigh between 2.5 tonnes, for a young female, and 7.0 tonnes, for a large bull. An elephant calf usually weighs around 90 kilograms at birth. Once in the water these large mammals seem to enjoy not only the coolness of the water but also its buoyancy and so become more playful in the water.

This is also a great time for young bulls to spar with each other.

“The story of elephant is also the story of water. They are at home in the water as on land. These water dances are playful games but with an undercurrent of testing wits and strengths”

~ Dereck and Beverly Joubert from the Soul of the Elephant

The young bulls mount each other is what looks to be play. Although they look to be trying to mate, it seems to be more about play and dominance.

This type of behaviour is not seen on land probably because they are just too big and heavy.

“Wisdom begins in wonder”

~ Socrates

Ivory – an elephant’s “achilles heel”. Both male and females have tusks. They are used for digging, carrying and fighting. Tusks continue to grow for all of an elephant’s life and as such are an indicator of age. The visible part of the tusk is usually about only two thirds of its length. A tusk is effectively an elongated incisor and comprises dentine similar to ordinary teeth. An elephants tusk grows up to 18 centimetres per year. It seems that the incidence of elephants with no tusks are increasing in some areas such as Gorongosa in Mozambique. Perhaps this adaptation which might be their saving grace. 

It is hard to believe that someone would want to kill these two tussling young bulls just for their ivory tusks. These elephants can grow to over seventy years of age without human interference.

“Ironically every dead elephant found with its ivory intact is a reason to celebrate. It means an elephant died of natural causes, not bullets, snares or poison, and a soul was allowed to be celebrated and mourned by its herd.”

~Dereck and Beverly Joubert

The young bulls seem to love playing in the water. They chase phantom rivals and enjoy making an almighty splash.

In the deeper water they seem to get a kick out of swishing their head and trunk back and forth in water creating large waves and sprays.

An elephant’s ears are big enough so that when they flap them, they can reduce the temperature of the affected area of the body by up to ten degrees Fahrenheit. Each elephant’s ear is different and like a fingerprint can be used as a form of  identification. An elephant also uses its ears as part of its body language. It has very sensitive hearing capable of picking up a range of sound frequencies, many of which humans cannot hear.

Elephants are highly vocal creatures. Their high frequency sounds such as trumpeting and snorting are used for short distance communication whereas elephants use infra-sound to send low frequency sound waves great distances. Humans normally cannot hear these low frequency sounds.

The young elephants have to be careful in the shallows of the Chobe river as there are some large crocodiles which will easily take a baby elephant. Needless to say this youngster’s mother was close by.

Small, hairy with uncontrollable trunks and perfect ears.

This young elephant was putting on a show for us and watching to see that we were looking at it all the time.

Nothing like a good powdering after a refreshing bath. Most animals use their nose for breathing but an elephant also uses its trunk for drawing water and drawing in dust and mud to spray over itself to protect or cool down its hide.

“What light is to the eyes – what air is to the lungs – what love is to the heart, liberty is to the soul.”

~Robert Green Ingersoll

Elephants are among the world’s most intelligent animals. They are capable of expressing a wide range of behaviours which we as humans associate as grief, learning, play, compassion and co-operation, to name a few.

This young bull was chasing the elephant in the front, all around the open area in front of us. This could possibly be young bull rivalry or it might have been a female, I could not tell.

If you were being chased by something that big you would run too!!

This was one of three large bulls strutting in amongst the herd, unsettling the females.

“There is something hypnotic about being in the path of a charging elephant, something dangerous but peaceful, beautiful. Time warps, we focus on the dance of the ears and sound dulls because we believe he will stop but we don’t know. It is strange that you feel most alive when you face death. When it is over ,I find myself strangely relaxed, privileged with having been face to face with a elephant.”

~ Dereck and Beverly Joubert from ‘The Soul of an Elephant.’

An imposing bull elephant with the gathering thunderclouds behind him.

Elephants have one of the most closely knit societies of any living species which are usually only split by death or capture.

“The  story of elephants is a timeless story of ghosts. They leave us messages, ancient footprints in the sands of time. In some places, it is the message of extinction as 35,000 elephants are poached each year, purely for their ivory. In other places there are messages of hope where there are still giants, seven tonne giants in full sail. Their movements are mediation, their eyes shine with a deep intelligence…….”

~ Dereck and Beverly Joubert from the ‘Soul of an Elephant.’

This image was taken on the Botswana side of the river  just down river from the Chobe Game lodge.

Elephants are the only other known species of animal, other than man, to have any recognisable ritual around death. I was privileged to experience this first hand early one Sunday morning in Mashatu in south-eastern Botswana. The matriarch had died about ten months earlier. There was nothing left but her skull and a number of her bones. Two herds separately  approached the site where the matriarch’s bones were scattered with what seemed to be great reverence. It was very quiet and individual elephants walked up to the bones and gently touched and caressed them with their trunks and the young ones also rolled the bones over with their feet. A group of us sat watching this ritual in absolute silence as the sun was rising . It was like being in cathedral without a word being spoken enveloped with an overwhelming sense of reverence.

“They approach with a side on strut, then dip their heads for the charge. When flapping ears and trumpeting, we are Ok. It is when they go quiet and drop their heads that it could go either way. There is a subtle language to all of this…..”

~Dereck  and Beverly Joubert from the ‘Soul of an Elephant’.

I wonder how much longer we will be able to marvel at these incredible sighting of elephants and more importantly whether our children and their children will have the privilege of watching these highly intelligent social beings in their natural environment.

Human beings are waging a war against elephants, obviously not all human beings but enough of them to cause their rapid population decline. We are losing elephant populations so fast that it is a race against time. Asia’s hunger for ivory is insatiable. Most of the ivory trade is illegal run by underground cartels. What will the poachers do when they run out of elephants  – will human parts be the next source of commercialisation???!!!!!!!!

“Go into the government’s ivory stockpile in Nairobi. It is like being in a genocide museum. “

‘Central Africa has lost 64% of its elephants in a decade’ – National Geographic.

Tanzania has emerged as the epicentre of of Africa’s elephant poaching risk after a government census revealed it had lost a “catastrophic” 60% of its  elephants in five years. Tanzania’s elephant population had been one of the largest but data revealed by the Tanzanian government showed that between 2009 and 2014, the number of elephants has fallen from 109,051 to 43,330.

“Our prime purpose in life is to help others. And if you can’t help them at least don’t hurt them.”

~Dali Lama

In early 2014, Botswana became one of the few African countries with abundant wildlife to put an end to trophy hunting.  President Kama stated that hunting was no longer compatible with wildlife conservation and urged communities to switch to photographic tourism. There is now the cry that the ban on hunting has worsened the human-wildlife conflict in many parts. Perhaps all the leftover meat discarded by hunters attracted the predators in the first place and perhaps the elephants normal habitat has been lost by human predation. 

Once humans have commercialised wildlife to the point of extinction  – then what? Perhaps in our quest for personal gain and we should remember that we are integral custodians of this natural system of immense wisdom. We are not the most important creatures on this planet, we are only as important. Because of our overwhelming growth we are crowding out all other creatures on this planet. We have a pressing responsibility to pass on this world to our children in at least the state we found it or preferably with less human interference. So far this generation has shown materialism and greed and a desperate lack of responsibility and intergenerational fairness! Where did we get the idea that everything in the natural world must fit in with us and that we have a right to commercialise everything we come across ?

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

In April 2016, my daughter Lauren and I were fortunate enough to spend four days on photographic safari with CNP Safaris on the Chobe River. A big thank you to friend, guide and excellent photographer, Johan Greyling for a productive four days on the river..

“Wild rivers are earth’s renegades, defying gravity, dancing to their own tunes, resisting the authority of humans, always chipping away, and eventually always winning.”

~ Richard Bangs & Christian Kallen, River Gods

The Chobe river flows along part of the northern border of Botswana. We were lodged at Chobe Safari Lodge in Kasane and went out on the CNP photographic boat every morning and afternoon up the Chobe river between Kasane and Serondela. This part of the river stretches up to the Chobe Game Lodge  and further upstream for another six or seven kilometres, all of which is in the Chobe National Park. 

I have been on the Chobe river before in April but the river was much higher than usual. The high waters enabled us to access places which were normally only available to the road safari vehicles.  The special aspect about the boat is that it gives photographers a unique perspective and the animals allow the boat to come closer than they would a road vehicle.

“Sit by a river. Find peace and meaning in the rhythm of the lifeblood of the Earth.”

~ Anonymous

The high waters were at least two months early and the river’s water level was the highest I have ever seen it. This was a paradox considering southern Africa is in the grip of the worst drought in over 20 years. The headwaters of the Chobe form on the slopes of Mount Tembo  and build into the Cuando river which flows through the central plateau in Angola into Namibia’s Caprivi Strip and into the Linyanti Swamp on the northern border of Botswana. Down river, below the swamp the river is called the Linyanti which flows west and becomes the Chobe River, before it flows into the Zambezi River.

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”
~George Bernard Shaw

The high waters were a playground for not only Chobe’s massive Elephant herds, but also for the festival of water birds along the river. In this post, I have focused on one unusual water bird, the African Jacana. This is one of the two Jacanas found in southern Africa, the other is the Lesser Jacana. I was really hoping to get some decent images of the Lesser Jacana but they are seldom seen. All the conditions seemed right but we never saw one.

We found quite a few Jacana fathers with their chicks. The abundant Jacana chicks were unusual for this time of the year, as it was a later than usual. African Jacanas build a rough floating raft of water-lily stems and grass. The nest is not specially lined and the conical eggs are laid straight onto this rough floating raft. African Jacana females lay approximately four glossy eggs which are camouflaged with different markings. Once the eggs are laid, the female leaves the male to incubate them.

Jacana chicks are born precocial. According to Stanford Education Group, a precocial bird is “capable of moving around on its own soon after hatching.” There are degrees of precociality. Level 1 means the chicks are totally independent of their parents immediately after hatching. Level 2 of precocial development is found in ducklings and the chicks of many waders. They follow their parents but find their own food, which is what jacanas chicks do. The precocial chicks hatch with their eyes open, they are covered with down, and are capable of leaving the nest soon after hatching (they can walk and often swim).

The chicks would stay close to the river grass and reeds when their father was not close by, as they could quickly hide in the grass if threatened.

These new-born jacana chicks were foraging for snails, flies and small insects which landed on the water lilies.

These tiny waders must be a few grams in weight and are about two inches in size.

Every five or ten minutes the father would make a sound (which I could not hear) and the chicks all gathered around him and one-by- one tucked themselves under each of his wings.

At times the father would get up and walk with the chicks under his wings. In times of danger, the father is known to gather all the chicks under his wings and run across the water lilies to get his family into a safer area.

The African Jacana has evolved a  polyandrous mating system. This means that one female mates with multiple males and the male alone cares for the chicks. Such a system has evolved due to a combination of factors. Firstly,  jacanas live in a resource-rich environment so the energy expended by the female in producing each egg is minimal relative to its access to food. Secondly, the jacana lays an egg which can be equally well incubated by either parent.

The river is a dangerous place for new-born jacana chicks. There are raptors from above, water monitors in the grass and crocodiles and tigerfish in the water. When these chicks sense danger from above they either dash into the grass and reeds or alternatively dive under the water and float just below the surface with just their beaks protruding so they can breathe.

It was quite cold early in the mornings so every ten or fifteen minutes the male would fly back to his chicks and gather them under his wings, possibly to warm them up. They would remain nestled under his wing, two chicks under each wing for about five minutes before they started to get fidgety.

If an adult jacana stands on a flat round water-lily pad-like leaf too long it will slowly sink. The chicks do not have that problem.

One of the amazing aspects of the Chobe river, and it is true on any bush experience, it is never the same twice. This time the water levels were particularly high and this gave us a unique opportunity to photograph adult jacanas on lily pads in more open water which improved the backgrounds. Some mornings the water was so still it looked like blue glass.

When the wind blows its sometimes catches the underside of the water-lily pads lifting them up revealing a heavily textured underside with numerous veins. This also gives the jacanas an opportunity to search for snails and water insects which live under the lily pads. The flat round leaves have a waxy water-repellent upper side. The underside, however, seems to cling to the water by surface tension. Some water lily leaves are a purple brownish colour underneath. The pigments help concentrate the sunlight to maximise photosynthesis. The leaf stem is hollow and transports air from the surface to the underwater rhizomes which can grow to a massive size. Water Lilies grow best in calm freshwater.

The African Jacana is unique among Chobe’s water birds. Its colouring is striking with a bright blue frontal shield. This shield consists of a hard fleshy plate of specialised skin extending from the base of the upper bill over the forehead. This shield is thought to protect the face while the jacana is feeding in, or moving through, dense vegetation, as well as to courtship display and territorial defence. This shield is found in rail and jacana families.

“When people ask me what equipment I use – I tell them my eyes.”
~ Anonymous

The adult jacana has a  line of black feathers from its beak through its eye spreading out over its crown and neck. It has a golden necklace and its wings and body feathers are a rich chestnut-brown. Their most striking feature though, are their long legs and especially long toes which spread out over the water-lily pad enabling the jacana to distribute their light weight on the lily pad.

If jacanas are not looking for insects inside the water-lily flowers they are pecking insects off the surface of the lily pad.

The next few images show the African Jacana’s lily trotting ability.

“Taking pictures is savouring life intensely, every hundredth of a second.”
~ Marc Riboud

“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle.”
~Nhat Hanh

“We labour long and earnestly for peace, because war threatens the survival of man. It is time we labored with equal passion to defend our environment. A polluted stream can be as lethal as a bullet.”

~ Senator Alan Bible

Jacanas are good fliers and usually fly low over the water from one flotilla of lily pads to the next. This inevitably takes them into other jacana’s territories and causes conflict accompanied by much noise.

  

It is only once the African Jacana adult is flying that you get to see just how long its toes are.

African Jacanas are the ballerinas of the Chobe. They are very light on their feet and very nibble.

“Taking an image, freezing a moment, reveals how rich reality truly is.”
~ Anonymous

Jacanas don’t seem to show much respect for the water-lily flowers and often walk right over them once they have inspected their stamen for insects.

“Of course, there will always be those who look only at technique, who ask ‘how’, while others of a more curious nature will ask ‘why’. Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information.”

~Martin Parr

Although there are many jacanas along southern African water ways, it is seldom that you can get a clean shot of a jacana because they feed on insects on flotilla of water lilies and along river banks. We were lucky on this occasion finding a few relatively scattered waterlily pads in an open section of water which provided opportunities to shoot images of jacanas with clean backgrounds. This was in a section of water where we do not normally find water-lily pads but the flooded waters must have created this situation.

  

Late one afternoon on our way back to the lodge, we were making our way through the flooding grass when we came across this adult jacana, which was swimming. It did not try to fly away. We followed it for about ten minutes. African Jacanas are capable swimmers despite not having webbed feet but their very long toes do get caught in the grass under the water. 

At one point, we thought this might be a male which was carrying his chicks under its wings but the intervals between resting points were too long for the chicks to have survived. Another thought was that this bird was moulting but that was not obvious. We never got to find out why this Jacana was swimming and not flying.

I will never grow tired of climbing onto a boat and travelling up the Chobe river. Every journey is different, it offers new insights and mysteries revealed. I gain a deeper appreciation for how interconnected everything is with the river. The sublime beauty painted with soft hues, the peace at dawn punctuated by a fish eagle’s cry is heaven.

“Rivers hardly ever run in a straight line.
Rivers are willing to take ten thousand meanders
and enjoy every one
and grow from every one.
When they leave a meander,
they are always more
than when they entered it.
When rivers meet an obstacle,
they do not try to run over it.
They merely go around
but they always get to the other side.
Rivers accept things as they are,
conform to the shape they find the world in,
yet nothing changes things more than rivers.
Rivers move even mountains into the sea.
Rivers hardly ever are in a hurry
yet is there anything more likely
to reach the point it sets out for
than a river?”
~James Dillet Freeman

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

The two most abundant herbivores we saw in the Serengeti in March were Plains Zebras and Topis. The Plains Zebra is also called Burchell’s Zebra. These are the strange striped wild horses of Africa. There are three species of zebra in Africa, the Burchell’s or Plains Zebra, Grevy’s Zebra and the Mountain Zebra. The zebra’s stripes are an enigma in the savanna. For years, scientists have debated the evolutionary reason behind a zebra’s stripes. There is a reason for everything in nature so the first obvious question is why the zebra has such visible stripes in the bush veld where camouflage would be a evolutionary advantage in an environment seething with predators.

“These strange striped horses are caught in a permanent dance of  conflict and survival. Waves of zebras are caught in a desperate never ending race for survival. They trace ancient paths forming a delicate lacework in the sand, creating patterns in the grass.”

~Dereck Joubert

Zebras are nomads and follow the rain which leads to fresh new grass. Zebras have a characteristic neighing which has become an iconic sound on the plains and can be heard day and night. The next image was taken on our first afternoon out while watching a pair of the lions mating. The passing zebra were aware of the lions and gave them a wide berth.

Zebras stay in family groups within a bigger herd. They walk in strict hierarchy. Only the stallion can walk along the line. The zebras move in herds because they provide more eyes to watch for predators.

“We are the products of editing, rather than of authorship.”
~ George Wald

The riddle of the”painted horses'” stripes is progressively being decoded. One reason offered for their stripes is that in a herd, the stripes have a blinding effect on predators making it difficult for them to pick out a target in the blur of stripes. Other reasons have been offered:- 

In a fascinating article by National Geographic, Dell’Amore explains that the “stripe riddle” has puzzled scientists, including Darwin, for over a century. There are five main hypotheses why zebras have the stripes: to repel insects, to provide camouflage through some optical illusion, to confuse predators, to reduce body temperature, or to help the animals recognise each other. New analysis of the Plains Zebra show that temperature is the factor most strongly linked to striping: More specifically, the warmer it is, the more stripes on the zebra.

In a project supported by National Geographic Society’s Committee for Research and Exploration, Brenda Larison, a biologist at the University of California, together with colleagues , visited 16 zebra populations throughout Africa and studied their stripe patterns. They measured 29 different environmental factors – such as soil moisture, rainfall, prevalence of disease-carrying tsetse flies, and distribution of lions – looking for correlations to the stripe patterns across the zebra’s range. The two factors most correlated with the stripes were consistent temperature in a particular area and the average temperature during the coldest part of the year. Why temperature affects the number of stripes is another matter. One possible reason is that the black and white stripes absorb temperature at different rates creating micro eddies which provide a moderate cooling effect.

“Man masters nature not by force but by understanding. This is why science has succeeded where magic failed: because it has looked for no spell to cast on nature.”
~Jacob Bronowski

Another idea suggests that more stripes may be a barrier against disease, since disease-carrying biting flies, like horseflies, tend to like it hot. Experiments in the field have shown that biting flies don’t like landing on striped surfaces. While it gets warm in the Serengeti, rising to the early thirties centigrade, it does not get fiendishly hot, into the upper forties.

One stallion was walking with the group in the previous image, but must have got the scent of the mating lions on the wind. He stopped to get a good look to see exactly where and how many there were. These herds of zebra are usually the first to enter new grazing pastures. They trample down the long vegetation so the gazelle and wildebeest can follow.

We only saw one real fight among the thousands of zebra we saw. The fights are usually among males. They usually try to bite each other’s fetlocks or flanks. These two stallions decided to have a full on fight.

This fight was serious with one stallion going for the other’s neck, with intent.

  

What was more surprising was this fight went on for what seemed to be more than ten minutes. There was obviously a serious issue which had to be sorted out.

  

Further research by Professor Tim Caro, from the University of California, found that stripe visibility decreases dramatically as light falls. At dusk, when hunting by carnivores normally begins, humans can resolve stripes from greater distances than other mammals: 3 times those of lions, 5 times further than spotted hyenas, and 1.9 times more distant than zebras.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”
~Attributed to Charles Darwin

This next image is of a small family group where one mare had a nasty gash on her shoulder from what must have been a lion attack. Hyaenas normally attack the rump. She obviously managed to get away. With luck it will not get infected and will heal, but zebra cannot lick their wounds clean, as they do not have the flexibility of cats. Zebras do tend to stand head to tail so each can use the other’s tail as a fly swat.

Births are usually timed to match the abundance of the new grass. Serengeti’s volcanic grasslands respond quickly to rain.  The new born foal imprints on the mother’s pattern from birth and its mother will shield the foal from seeing any other patterns for the first day or so. The stripes act as a kind of zoological barcode, allowing one individual to recognise another. Zebra mares do not adopt each others foals. The foal’s voice is also unique, and its survival depends on quick voice and pattern recognition. We saw many young in the various herds of differing ages. The abundance of young was a sure sign that the herd was migrating to new more abundant grasslands.

The zebra seemed to mingle easily with both topi and eland. The topi were more skittish and prone to gallop off in great numbers at high-speed .   Herbivores in the Serengeti take part in grazing successions in which species follow each other in characteristic sequences during their seasonal movements. In the Serengeti, the succession is zebra first, wildebeest second and lastly Thomson’s gazelle. The semi-migratory topi tend to associate with zebra. 

Zebra family groups are often thrown into disarray at night due to predator attacks. The next morning, Zebra families spent hours gathering together. The stallions are tireless in the quest to reassemble their family groups, calling until all the family members are together.

“Butterflies and Zebras And moonbeams and fairy tales, That’s all she ever thinks about Riding with the wind.”

~ Jimi Hendrix

On average, Plains Zebras are smaller than the other two species of zebra. They range in height from 1.0-1.5 metres and can weigh almost 450 kg. Plains zebras also have a different stripe pattern to the other species. They have broad stripes that run horizontally towards the back and vertically towards the front, meeting in a triangle in the middle of their bodies. They also have a stripe that runs down the center of their backs onto the tail. Plains Zebras also have underbelly stripes. Although all Plains Zebras share these similarities in stripe patterns, no two zebras have exactly the same pattern.  Foals are usually precocial and are up on their legs around 10 minutes after birth, and are able to walk within half an hour and run after an hour.

Down at the Ngokeo dam, we found a large herd of zebra where groups were coming down to drink in relays.

  

What was unusual about these zebra was that they walked deep into the water. This was unusual because the zebra have to cross a the number of rivers during their migration which are infested with crocodiles.  I would have thought they would have been programmed to be very wary of wading in too deep.

  

There must have been something about this dam that indicated to them there were no crocs in it. Perhaps it was that the dam was so far from the nearest river that the chances of  croc making it over land to the water was very remote. 

“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived, and dishonest – but the myth – persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.”
~John F. Kennedy

There were lions everywhere in the Serengeti. On the dam wall there were a couple of bushes and sure enough in the shade of one group of bushes were two young nomad male lions. They were definitely interested in the Zebra but there were too many eyes for them to make a surprise attack.

Invariably, when the rest of the group were drinking, there was always one zebra with its head up keeping guard.

The zebra were drinking deeply but their reactions were “hair-triggered”. It took very little to spook them and in a split second they spun around and gallop out of the water in a muddy spray. 

  

We must have watched the zebra for over an hour and the two young male lions did not move during that time.

There were groups of zebras which seemed to have a definite close bond.

“I asked the Zebra, 
are you black with white stripes? 
Or white with black stripes? 
And the zebra asked me, 
Are you good with bad habits? 
Or are you bad with good habits?”

~ Shel Silverstein

We found many large herds of zebra. They seemed to be clusters of family groups which had combined to walk through the high reed oat grass en mass. There is a strict hierarchy in the line of zebra from highest ranking at the front. The “harem” stallion is usually rear guard.

The zebra seemed to comfortably mingle with the topi, which were much more reactive to their environment. Perhaps the topi were early warning messengers.

“There is language going on out there- the language of the wild. Roars, snorts, trumpets, squeals, whoops, and chirps all have meaning derived over eons of expression… We have yet to become fluent in the language -and music- of the wild.”

~ Boyd Norton, Serengeti: The Eternal Beginning

  

We noticed that zebra, like many antelope drink in an arc, probably to get fresh water.

These strange striped horse of Africa are fascinating and are good example of the deeper you look into nature the more your discover its complexity and interconnectedness. Evolution has dictated that there is a reason for everything in nature.

“The zebras have arrived, like spirits they float through the ancient treeline. Bodies dancing in the heat haze, feet and legs lost in the mirage.”

~ Dereck Joubert from ‘Patterns in the grass’.

This is the last post from our Serengeti trip in March. A big thank you again to CNP Safaris and Wenzel Kotze for a wonderful, exciting and fascinating 10 days in a place I love.

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

Serengeti is known for its tree climbing Lions. On the open plains of the Serengeti, the trees are not in groves but are scattered around, with belts of trees and bushes on the fringes of the open plains.  The Balanites and Sausage trees seem to be preferred by the Lions.

“Every living thing is a masterpiece, written by nature and edited by evolution.”

~ Neil Degrasse Tyson

There are apparently four prime reasons for Lions climbing trees in this area. The first is that they are likely to catch any passing breeze higher in a tree rather than lying in the grass. Secondly, they have a good visual of the surrounding area and can see game approaching from afar. Thirdly, seemingly the tsetse flies due not bother them as much up in the trees. Finally, the Lionesses can get away from the cubs and get some peace.

After her stretch this Lioness walked down to the dam for a drink and was inevitably joined by a cub.

 

This female was not impressed with the cubs. She literally walked right over this cub.

“Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They came through you but not from you and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.”

~ Khalil Gibran
The irritated Lioness walked away from the pride to a tree about forty metres away. First things first – she sharpened her claws to ensure her grip on the tree trunk she was about to climb. Looking at the muscular shoulders of this Lioness, she was one really powerful cat.

“Your mind is your best camera . . . Go out and take some beautiful pictures.”
~ Daryl Ryman

It is quite clear that Lions are not built for climbing trees due to their bulk. This Lioness, rippling with muscle, used all her strength to get into the tree. It also helps when you have grappling hooks on your feet.

Once in the tree she seemed to visibly relax and after a while looked quite content.

“Life is really simple but we insist on making it complicated.”

~ Confucius

After  a decent break the Lioness decided to come down the tree – head first. She was still suckling her cubs so there must have been a call or sound that we did not hear which motivated her to come down. She walked straight over to her cubs and they started to suckle.

 

The next day we returned to the dam where we had found the pride from the previous day. They had moved some way from the dam but were still within easy walking distance of it. On this occasion our timing was good as we watched a number of the lionesses climb a tree in what looked to be an effort to get away from the constant demands of their cubs. One by one the Lionesses climbed the tree.

“If you desire to see, learn how to act.”
~ Heinz von Foerster

Some of the older cubs decided to follow their mothers to the tree and watched as they climbed the tree.

Each Lioness sharpened her claws on the trees trunk before climbing. This very young cub was mimicking its mother but had no chance of getting up the tree trunk

“We do not remember days, we remember moments.”

~ Cesare Pavese

 Peace at last. The Lionesses looked suitably relaxed and seemed to mould their bodies along the shape of the branches.

Lions are big and bulky so do not have the grace and ease of a Leopard in a tree. Watching these lions gingerly move about among the branches highlights their lack of natural tree climbing ability. Their awkward hesitance contrasts sharply with the agility and ease of a leopard’s movements in trees. 

Once up, they seemed to be quite comfortable.

“Learn to see, and then you’ll know that there is no end to the new worlds of our vision.”
~ Carlos Castaneda

The Lionesses could watch the cubs from above with out being constantly pestered by them or the flies.

 

Lion wind chimes!?!

This Lioness does not look comfortable but she lay in this position for over half an hour.

This Lioness looked reluctant to go down the tree to her calling cubs, knowing only too well that their needle-like teeth would latch onto her already tender nipples.

Some trees offer better shade and even camouflage. Comfort is a relative concept in the bush.

Peace does not last long. One of the older cubs decided to copy the adults and managed to get up the tree, then a second cub followed but only two were able to get up the tree trunk. The adults did not afford them any special place once in  the tree. They had to find their own spot.

“We never see anything completely. We never see a tree, we see the tree through the image that we have of it, the concept of that tree; but the concept, the knowledge, the experience, is entirely different from the actual tree.”
~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Once up the tree the cub blended in well with the well feed adults.

One of the two cubs  managed to climb the tree. They were afforded no special positions in the tree.

Not comfortable with its position and no where to lie.

“Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.”

~ Buddha

It does not look comfortable but this Lion remained in the same spot for an hour and was still there when we left.

Every now and then a Lioness would descend the tree to go and attend to her cubs.

“One way to get the most out of life is to look upon it as an adventure.”

~ William Feather
Descending the tree was always face first but there was no jumping from great heights.

Slowly the mothering instinct took over and one by one the Lionesses descended the tree to attend to their calling cubs.

Climbing trees is unusual behaviour for most Lion prides, though it seems to be fairly common and repeated behaviour among specific prides. This may indicate that there is a measure of behavioural learning that occurs. Young Lions see older lions climb trees and copy the behaviour so the habit remains in that pride. And like any skill, the more that they do it, the more adept and confident they become. Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

“Life just seems so full of connections. Most of the time we don’t even pay attention to the depth of life. We only see flat surfaces.”
~ Colin Neenan

Have fun,

Mike

Serengeti is well known for its herds and predators. I visited the Western Corridor section of the Serengeti in mid-March around two months before the Wildebeest herds were due to arrive. I was surprised to see substantial herds of Zebra, Topi, Buffalo and Eland already heading northwards in the Western Corridor in mid-March. But another pleasant surprise was the variety of our avian friends. This post shows some of that variety.

“Why is it you can never hope to describe the emotion Africa creates? You are lifted. Out of whatever pit, unbound from whatever tie, released from whatever fear. You are lifted and you see it all from above.”

~ Francesca Marciano

White-bellied Bustard adults have blue-grey necks. The adult female has a grey crown, a brown and buff line below the eye, and black speckling on the throat. The adult male has a black crown, black lines on his white cheeks, a black throat patch, and a pinkish-red bill.

This adult female White-bellied Bustard was busy stretching. I did not see the male  but they usually forage in pairs or small family groups.

 

A juvenile Yellow-throated Longclaw with breakfast.

This was an adult Yellow-throated Longclaw conspicuously perched on top of a bush declaring its territory. It was all puffed up as it had just been shuffling its feathers to get them back into place after the bird had been moving in what looked like a puzzle bush, Commiphora Africana.

Male Saddle-billed Stork perched on top of a dead tree getting ready to settle down for the night. It is easy to identify the male as he has a yellow wattle under his throat and a black eye.

This pair of Saddle-billed Storks settling in to roost for the night at the top of a dead tree, out of nocturnal harm’s way. They were busy preening and adjusting to the most comfortable position.

This was also a male Saddle-bill Stork, the female has no yellow wattle under its chin but has a yellow eye ring.

“Nothing but breathing the air of Africa, and actually walking through it, can communicate the indescribable sensations.”

~ William Burchell

At the dam where we found the large pride of Lions were a resident family group of White-faced Whistling Ducks. It was a flock of about 12 birds. They were surprisingly quiet, possibly because of the lions.

The characteristic whistling call of this duck is one of my favourite and an iconic sound along waterways in sub-Saharan Africa. This character was a little muddy because it had rained recently but they are exquisitely coloured ducks. They can comfortably stand dead still on one leg with no wobbling like we do.

At the same dam where we saw the White-faced Whistling Ducks were a number of passers-by. One such passer-by was this Hammerkop. Among certain African tribes the Hammerkop is believed to be the “lightning bird”. Among others the “lightning bird” is believed to manifest itself only through lightning, except to women, to whom it reveals itself as a bird. In these instances the bird is of imaginary nature and may take several forms. The lightning bird is a mythological creature in the folklore of the tribes of South Africa including the Pondo, the Zulu and the Xhosa. The impundulu (which translates as “lightning bird”) takes the form of a black and white bird, the size of a person, which is said to summon thunder and lightning with its wings and talons.

This Wood Sandpiper is a small wader with green-yellow legs. It has a dark brown streaked crown, white eyebrow, and dark line through eye. It also has white underparts with brown-gray streaks and marks on neck, breast, and flanks and a white rump. Its back is a grey-brown and its wings have a pale brown mottling. A group of sandpipers has many collective nouns, including a “bind”, “contradiction”, “fling”, “hill”, and “time-step” of sandpipers.

The Wood Sandpiper can easily be mistaken for a Green Sandpiper which has the same distribution but has darker colouring on its upper wing and back feathers and is lightly larger and dumpier than the more elegant Wood Sandpiper

 

This juvenile Grey Crowned Crane was foraging alongside its two parents quite close to the Grumeti Tented Camp. These youngsters definitely improve with age.

We came across many pairs of Grey Crowned Cranes scattered all over the Western Corridor. These two were performing a ritualised mating dance. This breeding display involves dancing, bowing, and jumping. This Crane has a booming call which involves inflating the red gular sac. It also makes a honking sound quite different to the trumpeting of other crane species.

There are two species of Crowned Crane in east and central Africa. The one species, which we saw in the Serengeti and which we see in southern Africa, is the Grey Crowned Crane. There is also a Black Crowned Crane which is found  in northwest Kenya and Uganda. The Black Crowned Crane looks similar in size and shape but its body feathers are black and it has different facial markings and less prominent red facial skin and red throat wattles.

These are exquisitely beautiful birds whose honking or croaking call does not match their feathered finery.

“Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.”

~Langston Hughes

Tanzania and Kenya have an incredible variety of Barbets and Tinkerbirds. This next character is an Usambiro Barbet and found mainly in the Mara-Serengeti ecosystem.

Usambiro Barbets are usually found in pairs and are often  seen and heard performing a rattling duet. While “duetting” the pair bob up and down with their tails waving up and down.

A frequent visitor around the camp during the day, when we were editing our images, was this Slate-coloured Boubou. It was very inquisitive and would hop onto the tables where we were working presumably looking for food.  The Slate-coloured Boubou is one of four types of Black Boubou in East Africa but the only one found in the Serengeti area. It had that distinctive rich BouBou-like call.

As you would expect there are a huge variety of seed eaters in the Serengeti. This was a male Purple Grenadier similar to our Violet-eared Waxbill in southern Africa but with a much greater covering of purple on its breast belly and tail feathers.

The Silverbird is found in the Serengeti, western border of Kenya and Uganda. This is a Flycatcher which prefers wooded acacia and bushed grassland areas.

This Silverbird, in full plumage, was having a good stretch. Both sexes have similar colouring.

“I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while
I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more
distinguished by that circumstance that I should have been by any
epaulet I could have worn.” 
~ Henry David Thoreau

This White-headed Buffalo-Weaver was gathering grass for its nest which is a rough construction. The Buffalo-Weavers are weavers but are bigger, and heavier set with thicker bills than their normal weaver cousins. I think the White-Headed Buffalo-Weaver is the most attractively coloured of the three Buffalo-Weaver species found in East Africa

This Northern White-crowned Shrike is similar to its southern cousin but has a darker back and upper wing feathers and its white crown does not extend down its neck like its southern cousin.

These Northern White-crowned Shrikes gather in small flocks. As with many East African species of birds there is an extensive variety and these are one of the six species in the Helmet-shrikes clan.

East Africa has a fantastic array of Starling species which are grouped into Rufous-bellied, Bi-coloured, Glossy Blue, Red-winged and Elegant Starlings. This Superb Starling has a  small insect in its beak. The Superb Starling is similarly coloured to the Hildebrandt’s Starling but the former has a white eye and white colour stripe across its chest. Its nape and back feathers are bluer and not as purplish as the Hildebrandt’s Starling.

Its ordinary name belies the gorgeous colouring of this Grey-breasted Spurfowl. This Spurfowl has a grey chest and belly with black streaking which  is combined with blood chestnut stripes along its underparts.

This lone Grey-breasted Spurfowl was sitting on a branch jutting horizontally out of a large tree and in between extensive preening it was declaring to the whole world that this was its patch.

The Grey-breasted Spurfowl is slightly larger than the Red-necked Spurfowl which looks very similar but the former has  grey breast feathers and no white stripes on its neck and chest but does have chestnut stripes on its belly. The Grey-breasted Spurfowl has grey legs while the Red-necked Spurfowl has orange-red legs.

The white malar stripe is evident in both the Grey-breasted and Red-necked Spurfowl. The Grey-breasted Spurfowl is narrowly distributed in the western Corridor of the Serengeti.

“The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet.
A bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and
intense his life. . . . The beautiful vagabonds, endowed with
every grace, masters of all climes, and knowing no bounds — how
many human aspirations are realised in their free, holiday-lives
— and how many suggestions to the poet in their flight and song! “
~ John Burroughs

There are five woodland Woodpeckers in East Africa and they look very similar but can be identified according to their facial markings, breast spots or stripes and home ranges. The male woodpeckers, in all but the Green-backed Woodpecker, have a red stripe on either side of their throat.

Three species of male woodland Woodpeckers are found in the Serengeti, Nubian, Golden-tailed and Green-backed. The Green-backed does not have a red facial moustache and the Golden-tailed has streaked markings on its breast so I presume this must be a Nubian Woodpecker.

   

The Grey-backed Fiscal Shrike looks like the Fiscal Shrike we see in South Africa but has a long tail and has a black mask across its eyes and its fore crown.

These are noisy birds which like to gather and display by waving their tails up and down much like Wood-Hoopoes
 

Down at the Ngokeo dam the bird life was prolific. The Ngokeo dam was around 20 kilometres due east of the Grumeti camp.

I think this is a juvenile Yellow Wagtail. It certainly has the size and shape of a Wagtail. It also had the characteristic tail wag action.

This was a real beauty and a can only imagine how pretty the adult is, even with its highly varied head colouring.

This next little character looked like a juvenile Killitz Plover. It could be mistaken for a White-fronted Plover but the Western Corridor is not its distribution range.

These little Plovers tend to operate alone foraging along the water’s edge.

Again the Serengeti delivers a variety of Plovers and their larger Lapwing cousins. This next image is of a Black winged Lapwing.

This Lapwing, like most of its family, had a harsh, strident and staccato call.

We saw the occasional Kori Bustard in the Western Corridor but they were relatively scarce.

As in Mashatu, these Kori’s do not like you to get too close. The best place to get close up images of Kori Bustards is in the Ngorogoro crater.

Like the Kori, this Southern Ground Hornbill was striding out in the open grasslands foraging for anything from small birds to rats, insects, reptiles and snakes. The male has a bare bright red skin around its eye and has red throat wattles.

 

The female Southern Ground Hornbill looks very similar to the male but has a violet-blue coloured skin throat patch. 

These Ground Hornbills would rather walk away from you than fly but are capable fliers for a few hundred metres. When they do fly their bright white primary wing feathers are clearly visible.

 

“There is nothing in which the birds differ more from man than the
way in which they can build and yet leave a landscape as it was
before.”
~ Robert Lynd

This pair of Marabou Storks were bathing at Ngokeo dam. They are really ugly storks and tend to hang around on the fringe of all the action at a carcass because they  eat scraps as their beaks are not designed for tearing meat off the bones. Marabous have two inflatable air sacs, one bright red one at the base of their hind neck and a bulbous throat sac.

 

This was an unusual resting pose. It just shows that some yoga poses are very natural. A Marabou Stork’s legs are dark grey in colour but often appear white as they have been splattered with excrement.

On a few occasions we saw small flocks of Yellow-throated Sandgrouse drinking at the water’s edge of the Ngokeo dam. The male Yellow-throated Sandgrouse is a bulky Sandgrouse which has a pale Yellow throat encircled by a black band. Its wing coverts are a chestnut-brown and its belly is a dark chestnut-brown.

These Sandgrouse seemed to arrive at the dam around mid-morning just before we stopped for our coffee and rusk break. They fly in from foraging in the open grasslands for seed.

These Yellow-throated Sandgrouse seemed to always arrive in pairs, The female had a similarly coloured head but with no black neck-band. Her body and wing feathers are heavily mottled with black, brown and buff colouring.

This was a group of Egyptian Goose goslings. There were only five goslings left. The typical clutch size is around eight eggs.

Both Egyptian Goose parents were in attendance. The parents are highly aggressive towards any other birds which are a perceived threat.

A White Stork resting on a log partially submerged in the dam. Most of the White Storks where not “washing powder” white because it has been raining and it was reasonably muddy.

These White Storks, which had migrated down from Europe, spent most of their time foraging for food in the grass plains.

There were lots of Black-headed Herons in the Serengeti. They tended to forage close to water.

These Black-headed Herons are not fussy eaters and will devour frogs, reptiles, terrapins, baby birds and mice if they can find them.

“The bird of paradise alights only on the hand that does not
grasp.”

~ John Berry

We found this solitary White-winged Tern at Ngokeo dam. It would not let us get close but its colouring makes me think this was its non-breeding plumage.

Wattled Lapwing about to land in a patch of shallow water at the Ngokeo dam.

 

There were a pair of Wattled Lapwings at the water’s edge which were very busy defending their turf from lots of other passers-by.

One of the passers-by which was chased off was this Blacksmith Lapwing.

We saw African Hoopoes regularly  and they were usually foraging in the open patches of ground in the grasslands.

It is quite something to be a ground feeder in open Serengeti plains where there are some many animals constantly on the move.

We saw Spur-winged Lapwings both close to Grumeti tented camp and next to the Ngokeo dam

  

We saw this Black-faced Sandgrouse also down at the water’s edge of Ngokeo dam.  The various Sandgrouse species do not seem to mingle.

A female Black-faced Sandgrouse about to take off.

“Use those talents you have. You will make it. You will give joy
to the world. Take this tip from nature: The woods would be a
very silent place if no birds sang except those who sang best.” 
~ Bernard Meltzer

A girls morning out. This was a large “waddle” of female Ostriches. We could not work out why their were so many females together.

On many occasions we saw pairs of Ostriches but only once did we see a gathering of females like this.

The Two-banded Courser is easily identified by its heavily scaled upper parts and  two clear narrow black breast bands. 

These Coursers can be found on the open patches of ground in the vast grassy plains. This particular species of Courser has a call much like a Thick-Knee.

  

A large flock of Abdim Storks was resting along the side of the Ngokeo dam.  They were all standing around and preening themselves. I was intrigued by this congregation.We saw them once and never again.

I hope you enjoyed this narrow selection of the birds you could see in this part of the world. The variety of birds is spectacular.

“Africa is mystic; it is wild; it is a sweltering inferno; it is a photographer’s paradise, a hunter’s Valhalla, an escapist’s Utopia. It is what you will, and it withstands all interpretations. It is the last vestige of a dead world or the cradle of a shiny new one. To a lot of people, as to myself, it is just ‘home.”

~ Beryl Markham

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

After taking our constitutional sunrise images on the Serengeti, the sun begun climbing into the clear blue sky heralding the start of a new and fascinating day on the plains. We decided to drive south towards the Grumeti ranger’s camp. It was sublimely quiet and fresh at that time of the morning. Suddenly Waziri, our ranger, speaking softly told is that there were two young Leopards in the middle distance off to our right. Waziri has the most incredible eyesight. Not one of us picked up the Leopards until we were told where to look. We turned off the main dirt road to drive into a grove of trees and low bushes to have a closer look.

“If intelligence is our only edge, we must learn to use it better, to shape it, to understand its limitations and deficiencies – to use it as cats use stealth, as katydids use camouflage – to make it the tool of our survival.”

~ Carl Sagan

We went to watch “rosettes in the dappled light”.

Two young Leopards were patrolling the tree line and its immediate grass surrounds. One Leopard optimistically decided to stalk a Topi. It was such fun to watch. It did not have a “rosetted” hope of pulling the Topi down and its game was in full view for us. The Topi was not fussed!!!

The optimistic youngster broke off its stalk as the Topi led it further out into the open away from the tree line.

“The only sure camouflage is unpredictability.”
~ Margaret Atwood

The “Topi stalking” Leopard turned its attention onto its companion and began stalking its friend. The two played this game for a few minutes before one made a dash for the tree line.

This was fun photography and something different as you very seldom see Leopards running

The two had such fun cavorting. The early morning light was soft and colours saturated, but our subjects were against the light .

There seemed to be sheer joy in their play!

Once out of the grass and in among the trees, the youngsters settled down. I managed to catch this young Leopard in an open patch of grass among the trees. What gorgeous, lithe, alert creatures. This leopard’s spots on its front graduated into rosettes on its torso and hind legs.

The young Leopards continued to stalk each other into thicker bush where the shade was deeper.

“In art and dream may you proceed with abandon. In life may your proceed with stealth and balance.”

~ Patti Smith

These predators were wide awake, with all their senses “bristling”. This young Leopard stopped to listen with its ears constantly moving back and forth locating the direction of the different sounds.

I loved the rosettes in dappled light but it was that eye that caught my attention!

“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”

~ Henry David Thoreau

Walking quietly in deep shade in the grass wet with morning dew.

We spent a special hour watching these two young Leopards. They must have recently been pushed out on their own by the mother. The Lions and Hyaenas seem so well oriented to the open plains, but these stealth specialists looked to be thriving, while operating in the narrow tree lines between the plains.

“Life just seems so full of connections. Most of the time we don’t even pay attention to the depth of life. We only see flat surfaces.“
~ Colin Neenan

Leopard cubs are born without a clear coat of spots. The spots begin to develop after a few days. This also sounds like a metaphor for their unique skills of climbing, stealth, camouflage and hunting. Leopard cubs will stay with their mothers for over two years, this is how they learn to hunt and survive on their own. These two young Leopards must have been between two and three years old and presumably have not been away from their mother long, so still stay together but that will change with time.

Leopards have lost 75 percent of their historic range across Africa, Asia and the Middle East, with three Asian subspecies in danger of eradication, a new study says. A three-year review of data published in the scientific journal PeerJ challenges the conventional assumption that the iconic and famously elusive spotted cats are thriving in the wild. It finds Leopards have almost disappeared from vast ranges in China, Southeast Asia and the Arabian peninsula while African Leopards confront mounting challenges in the north and west.

These big cats are threatened by spreading farmlands, declining abundance of prey, conflict with livestock owners, trophy hunting and illegal trade in their skins and teeth. Even today, Leopard skins are sometimes worn as a symbol of power by African chiefs and Presidents!!!!!!! Source: PeerJ

“Woven into our lives is the very fire from the stars and genes from the sea creatures, and everyone, utterly everyone, is kin in the radiant tapestry of being.”
~ Elizabeth A. Johnson

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

After an early morning start to take some images of the sunrise we wandered east towards the Grumeti ranger’s camp  in the Sabora plains.

“Living wild species are like a library of books still unread. Our heedless destruction of them is akin to burning the library without ever having read its books.”

~ John Dingell, Balancing on the Brink of Extinction: The Endangered Species Act and Lessons for the Future

We were watching a group of Topis cavorting around. A Topi is a subspecies of the Tsessebe. They are incredibly quick sprinters which are able to pronk and can do a high knee prance just like a Lipizzaner stallion. At the same time we were keeping an eye on two large female Hyaenas who were guarding their den out in the open at the top of a rise. All of sudden one of the female Spotted Hyaenas got up and started to run down the hill. Our ranger, Waziri, told us something was up and the next moment he shouted “Wild Dogs”.

Down in the shallow valley were a few Wild Dogs, not the whole pack. They had caught a Thompson’s Gazelle and were busy shredding it. When we got down there we found three Wild Dogs, two pups and an adult. The pups were sub-adults but looked strange as their skin was black and they had no hair. No one knew what caused the dogs to lose their hair but it must have been some form of mange.

The pups must have heard the Hyaenas coming. presumably the female racing down the hill had been “whooping” and calling for reinforcements. The first Hyaena arrived at the Wild Dogs just as we did.

The Hyaena came running in but the three Wild Dogs stood their ground, for a few seconds.

The Wild Dogs quickly realised that the Hyaena mob was descending on them.

“Competition has been shown to be useful
up to a certain point and no further,
but cooperation, which is the thing
we must strive for today,
begins where competition leaves off.”
~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

Within a few seconds, more Hyaenas arrived and the Wild Dogs gave way, being badly ‘outsized’ and outnumbered.

It was amazing to see all these Hyaenas appear out of nowhere. Presumably, the Hyaenas lay hidden in the tufts of red oat grass scattered all over the plain, waiting for the call to intercept.

There was no fighting between the Hyaenas over the carcass.

Two large females were the first to the carcass and the larger one quickly showed her dominance.

The largest female Hyaena, presumably the matriarch, grabbed the remains of the “Tommy” and ran back toward her den at the top of the hill. She  must have had pups at the den.

Having scattered all directions when the Hyaenas had descended on them, the three Wild Dogs quickly reassembled and looked around assessing the lie of the land now that all the Hyaenas in the area had been “called to arms”.

 

It was surprising to see the three Wild Dogs on their own but they quickly regrouped with the main pack.

“The one process now going on that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us.”

~ E. O. Wilson

Two Wild Dog packs had been reintroduced into this part of the Serengeti according to Waziri. One of the two alpha dogs had a tracking collar around its neck as presumably research was being done on the new immigrants.

The dogs were quite some distance from us and did not stand still for long. The loss of the meal was quickly forgotten and the pack was on the hunt again. Wild Dogs are nomadic and only den when they have pups which are too young to keep up with the pack.

There were 12 dogs in this pack, two of which were sub-adults. It looked like one or two of the adults were getting mange too. The Wild Dogs ears pricked up when they heard the Hyaenas again.

 

“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.”

~Henry Ford

This time the Wild Dogs turned the tables and gave the Hyaenas a “rev” and chased them away. 

The Wild Dogs never stopped moving and it did not take long for them to move beyond the range of our lenses.

According to the UCIN Red List the African Wild Dog is classified as Endangered with its population declining.  (http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/12436/0).  There are around 6,600 African Wild Dogs left in the wild. They have been endangered for more than  20 years. The loss of living space is one of the main reasons why this species’ population is in decline, as a pack range can be 900 square kilometres, according to The Endangered Wildlife Society.

The African wild dog has a very different pack life compared to other pack or group predators, they have a very caring and social nature towards each other.Within the pack there is a breeding pair. This means that only one female and male will have pups, but every dog in the pack takes part in raising the young. Unlike other group predators wild dogs let their young feed first, they also rarely show aggression towards each other when feeding or hunting. The hunting dogs will also return to the den and regurgitate food for the pups and those who stayed behind to guard them. (regurgitate means to spit food back up after its been swallowed) Wild dogs are almost never aggressive towards each other, even the hierarchy (this is the order of importance and power within the pack) is decided in a completely non-violent way. Wild dogs are some of Africa’s most successful hunters, with a kill rate as high as 80%. This means they are even more successful than lions. They use different sounds and calls to communicate amongst each other before and during the hunt. Source: http://www.londolozi.com/cubsden/why-is-the-african-wild-dog-an-endangered-species/

“Every creature was designed to serve a purpose. Learn from animals for they are there to teach you the way of life. There is a wealth of knowledge that is openly accessible in nature. Our ancestors knew this and embraced the natural cures found in the bosoms of the earth. Their classroom was nature. They studied the lessons to be learned from animals. Much of human behavior can be explained by watching the wild beasts around us. They are constantly teaching us things about ourselves and the way of the universe, but most people are too blind to watch and listen.”
~ Suzy Kassem

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

   

 

My penchant for raptors developed at the senior boarding school I attended called Falcon College in Zimbabwe. There was a very active Ornithological Society at the school and one of the extra mural activities was Falconry. My fascination for raptors has remained undiminished for the last 45 years. This Serengeti trip provided ample opportunity to feed my fascination for birds of prey.

“Photography is a love affair with life.”

~ Burt Uzzle

The second morning we were in the Serengeti we drove out north across the Grumeti River past the viewpoint close to one of the two dams in the area towards the the Raho river. Here we found a pride of Lion that had killed and almost completely finished off three Zebras. There were left overs and still some meat on the bones, but not very much.

It was incredible to watch, while the Lions are feeding on the carcass there were one or two Vultures and a Tawny Eagle circling patiently waiting for the Lions to have their fill and leave the carcass. As soon as the Lions moved away, the raptors descended onto the carcasses from everywhere.

The Hooded Vultures were the first to fly in to feast. They are a similar size to a Tawny Eagle, and so have a chance of taking their share of the feast. The size and shape of the bill indicates that it eats the scraps around the carcass  but does not have the ability to mix it up with the larger Vultures and tear meat off the carcass. Like a Bateleur and African Harrier Hawk, the Hooded Vulture’s facial skin  brightens when its excited or alarmed. The adult Hooded Vulture has pinkish facial skin.

The big guns flew past, Lappet-faced Vultures. This particular one was a juvenile who decided there was not enough to make it worthwhile joining the party.

A few White-headed Vultures flew in to pick from the remains but did not stay long.

White-head Vultures are uncommon. Size wise they are considerably bigger than Hooded Vultures but smaller than the Whited-backed  and Lappet-faced Vultures. They are big enough to claim their share but there was not enough to go around.

“Of course, there will always be those who look only at technique, who ask ‘how’, while others of a more curious nature will ask ‘why’. Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information.”

~ Man Ray

A dark morph Tawny Eagle was the first of the Eagles to arrive.

The Tawny Eagle can be mistaken for a Steppe Eagle during summer when the Steppe Eagle migrates down into Africa. There are two key differences. The Steppe Eagle is much larger than a Tawny and its gape extends past its eye whereas the Tawny’s gap stops just in front of the middle of the eye. Obviously very difficult to tell the difference from a distance.

This particular morning was defined by three different morph Tawnys flying into feast on the remains of the carcasses. This was a buff or blonde morph Tawny flying in. These raptors must watch each other very carefully to see when one has found some food.

“Photography is the art of frozen time… the ability to store emotion and feelings within a frame.”
 – Unknown

Pale morph Tawny Eagle flying in and dominating a piece of meat and pushing a dark morph Tawny away.

The Tawnys are more aggressive than the larger White-backed Vulture and the spreading of its wings is a clear signal of dominance.

A juvenile Bateleur Eagle also flew in having watched the Vultures and Tawnys descending from their aerial vantage point. This Bateleur had been feeding a some scattered pieces of meat away from the main action which is why its feet were blood stained. Carrion is an important part of a Bateleur’s diet. 

The Bateleur also had to give way to the Tawny invasion.

“The two most engaging powers of a photograph are to make new things familiar and familiar things new.”
~ William Thackeray

The third Tawny morph was the streaked type. There were two streaked morphs which flew in and they looked much stronger and more dominant, than the dark and pale morphs.

The way these raptors fly into a feeding area is fast and dramatic.

They certainly look intimidating on “finals”.

I love the way raptors’ wing tips spread out like fingers when they are slowing down.

The alula on the wing elbow was still in place suggesting that this streaked Tawny was coming in fast.

This streaked morph Tawny was not going to take any nonsense from the bigger White-back Vulture and pushed it off the piece of bone it was pecking at.

“Photography deals exquisitely with appearances, but nothing is what it appears to be.”
 ~ Duane Michals

  

On a separate occasion, we saw this blonde morph Tawny try to push in between two Hooded Vultures perched on a dead tree branch quite close to the aforementioned dam. The interaction between these two species was the subject of my first post from my Serengeti trip.

This was a particularly handsome character who decided to look for richer pickings.

“There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.”
~ Ansel Adams

In the tree overlooking the dam just above where the lions had been feeding on a Zebra carcass, we saw a pair of Verreaux Eagle-Owls. We thought they might have  been waiting to fed on the remains of the Zebra carcass.

Not so, they had other intentions. I did not manage to get a shot of the Verreaux Eagle Owl swooping down to the water’s edge to snatch up a large frog. This pair were hawking frogs from their perch overlooking the dam. I never realised they preyed on frogs. Normally when you see these huge raptors during the day they are in deep shade and their eyes are closed.  They have a diagnostic pink eyelid which is clearly seen when their eyes are closed.

“Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”
~ Leonardo da Vinci

These Eagle-Owls always look so sleepy during the day but they were clearly watching all the goings on around the dam.

This specie of Owls has especially long talons, similar to those seen on a Pel’s Fishing Owl. It is also Africa’s  largest Owl.

We found this Secretary Bird quite close to the open area near the Grumeti runway. This character was striding through the grass and its mouth was open because it was panting as it was quite hot. This is Africa’s only very long-legged raptor. Both sexes look-alike.

The next second it saw something ahead in the grass and ran off through the grass to catch it but missed. The Secretary Bird has substantial pads on the underside of its feet. It usually stamps on the ground to disturb its prey and then reigns blows on the victim with its feet to kill it. Secretary Birds are partial to snakes, insects, small birds, and small reptiles.

After watching the Lion pride for much of the early morning, we decided to explore further north. In our travels we came across this Dark Chanting Goshawk. It did not let us get too close. The two types of Chanting Goshawk get their names from their melodious chanting calls.

This is only the second time I have seen a Dark Chanting Goshawk, the other time was in Mashatu Game Reserve in southern Botswana. We usually see Pale Chanting Goshawks in South Africa and they are commonly seen in Etosha in Namibia. Dark Chanting Goshawks tend to frequent denser woodland areas than their pale counterparts which is why they are not usually seen as often as their pale cousins.

On our last morning in the Serengeti this Black-chested Snake-Eagle was sitting at the top of a tree with a good view of its surrounding area, minding its own business. These Snake-Eagles are known to be a perch hunter but it also spends considerable time  on the wing in search of prey. They are known to hover frequently and are the largest raptors to do so.

As with Rollers, Drongos and Lapwings, they taunt and harass any raptor close by.

“Distance lends enchantment to the view.”

~ Mark Twain

Raptors have a nictitating membrane which covers their eye when they are washing, feeding or fighting or being attacked. This Snake -Eagle never knew which direction the Roller was coming from but instinctively its nictitating membrane started to cover its eyes during the aerial raid.

After being pestered, and once it had seen some prey in the grass, this Black-chested Snake-Eagle flew down from the tree into the grass but we did not see it catch anything.

We saw an amazing variety of raptors when we were in the Grumeti area of the Serengeti. We had concentrated bouts of raptor sightings. You cannot but hold your breath when trying to capture decent raptor images, it is thrilling.

“And those who were seen dancing, were thought to be crazy, by those who could not hear the music.”

~ Friedrich Nietzsche

One of the more intriguing aspects was the number of colour variations of Tawny Eagle we saw in one morning. All of this took place outside the main migration period showing just how much life and variety remain in the Serengeti outside the migration.

“No man has the right to dictate what other men should perceive, create or produce, but all should be encouraged to reveal themselves, their perceptions and emotions, and to build confidence in the creative spirit.”

~ Ansel Adams

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike

I do not usually publish a post about where we stay on our photographic trips but this one was exceptional. We spent 10 wonderful days at the Grumeti Tented Camp in early March as part of a CNP Safari’s photographic trip.

“We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us.”

– Anonymous

We flew to the Grumeti by charter plane from Mount Kilimanjaro airport, a two-hour flight as you stop at all the landing strips along the way to pick up and drop visitors. The alternative is to drive for six hours on rough roads which gives you what is affectionately called an “African massage”.

The Grumeti Tented Camp is owned and operated by &Beyond. The camp is sited along the Grumeti river in the Western Corridor section of the Serengeti Nature Reserve in Tanzania. The Grumeti river flows into the southern part of Lake Victoria. The next map shows the Serengeti and the clockwise circular path that the “Great Migration” follows and the its approximate timing.

Courtesy of Mahlatini Safari (https://www.mahlatini.com)

A view up river of the camp. The river had been naturally dammed at this section and provided ideal pools for a number of large pods of Hippos.

An understated entrance to a beautiful tented camp. On occasions you could find a Hippo browsing on the grass next to the path.

 

The entrance to the main lounge and dining areas.

A view from inside the lounge looking out over the deck onto the Grumeti river – heaven!!

“People don’t take trips, trips take people.”

~ John Steinbeck

 

The main lounge area. It is warm all year-long so no need for walls.

 

On the deck in front of the main lounge area.

 

My kind of swimming pool providing cool respite from the midday heat. It was private and sited right next to the river with the sound of birds all around and Hippos grunting to each other all day long.

The swimming pool was about ten to 15 metres above the Grumeti river with a spectacular view up the Grumeti river.  The bush here is not quiet but somehow it is peaceful far away from barking dogs, high-pitched motor bike exhausts, traffic drone and house alarms.

Hippo antics in front of the camp in the Grumeti river.

Territorial tussle between bulls.

Breakfast in the park – far away from the maddening crowds. In the foreground is the new specially fitted photographic vehicle provided by CNP and &Beyond.

Our team of photographers,clockwise from front left, Elana Erasmus, Aubrey Siebert, CNP guide Wenzel Kotze, ranger Waziri, Duncan Blackburn and Dave Champion. Behind them were chef Jona, and waiters Elia and Raphael.

“Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.”

~ Ray Bradbury

My tent under a palm roof.

The view from my tent at sunset as I was getting ready for dinner. The Grumeti river was about thirty metres away.

At night after a wonderful cuisine from chef Mbesi and his team, I would sink in to bed and drift off into a dream-filled sleep serenaded by Hippos. During the night I could hear Lions roaring in the distance, Hyaena whooping to each and in the early hours a lone Leopard coughing on the far side of the river.

“The use of traveling is to regulate imagination with reality, and instead of thinking of how things may be, see them as they are.”

~ Samuel Johnson

To camp manager Joseph and his team, your camp is top draw. A wonderful setting, thankfully not glitzy but very comfortable and with exceptional service from your staff . A big thank you to you and your staff for making our stay so memorable.

“Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all of one’s lifetime.”

~ Mark Twain

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

Have fun,

Mike