Safari Update - Serengeti

Zebras at a Watering Hole

Serengeti National Park, Tanzania. March 2011

Nikon D3, 200-400mm, 1/800 @ f/6.3, ISO 400

Today we said goodbye to the wonderful Kusini staff, and headed north through the acacia woodland towards the central Serengeti. We are spending the last 3 nights of this safari at the new Kempenski Bilila Lodge, and I can already tell you that I really do like the accommodations here. But I digress…

The morning game drive was fairly quiet until we got to the Moru Kopjes, where we stumbled on a lion pride with many young cubs. We didn’t have a long time with them, as they were rapidly moving from the open grasslands to shaded trees, and we were on our way within a few minutes. It’s funny to be so casual about passing up lion opportunities, but these safaris really do allow my travelers to get picky about which opportunities are good and which are marginal. I am spoiled, for sure.

When we made it to the Moru Kopjes we saw three female lions in the distance, as well as a solo female leopard out in the waving green grass. These weren’t photographic moments, but rather great sightings that make me think long and hard about walking out in the open in the middle of the Serengeti. I had that thought on my mind as we also came across two large male lions at the Masai paintings area. I am glad we noticed them first, as we might have had a problem on our hands had we exited the vehicle too early.

We had to fill up the vehicles at Seronera, as we were running low on fuel. I thought we would be at the lodge by noon, however we decided to stop at a watering hole to watch the huge herds of zebras and wildebeest come in to drink. We definitely found a HUGE chunk of the migration right in the middle of the Serengeti. I always like to have 2 camp locations when I visit the Serengeti, as you never know where the migration is going to be. The herds we saw today in the Seronera valley were fairly substantial, and I know how many we saw down near Kusini yesterday, which means the migration is splintered right now. It’s a really cool sight to see.

I really like to drag the shutter on these types of shots, however I decided to go for the fast shutter speeds this afternoon to try something new. I think it worked, and I am happy with the results.