Serengeti NP, Tanzania

This campsite was much more what I had thought the trip would be like. Right in the Serengeti, no fences around the perimeter... Up and on the road for the morning game drive by 6am. The Serengeti is pretty much a big plain, so there wasn't the same surprises as Lake Manyara NP.

Saw: giraffes, lions (male and female), cheetah, ground sqirrel, hyraxes, zebras, spotted hyenas, hippos, crocodiles, egyptian geese, maribou, egrets, vultures.

Back for breakfast, then back out for the mid-day game drive. Saw a leopard! (#4 of the Big 5 list), and a migration of zebra and wildebeest (which are led by zebras!). An ostrich appeared to lead at points as well. We spent about two hours in the one spot, watching the leopard on one side, and the migration on the other.

Saw: leopards, zebras, wildebeest, ostriches, springbok, bustard, red-backed deer, hippos, lilac-breasted roller.

Returned for lunch, then lounged about in the shade. The 3rd game drive started at 4pm. It started out innocuously enough, until a lone zebra keeled over as we drove by. Jennifer got all excited, asking Is it giving pregnant? which the rest of us heard as Is it getting pregnant which obviously it was not, all alone. It turned out it was giving birth! A few minutes later, out came a baby zebra! Luckily no predators were around. Another zebra, (we think the father), came in from the distance, said something and then took off. We watched the baby try to stand on its own, a few minutes later helped by the mother who was now back on her feet. Within 15 minutes the baby was standing! We left to continue on safari. On the way back (about an hour later), we saw the mother and baby zebra again. The baby had now learned how to nurse. A couple of jackals and a vulture circled around for the placenta and there was a brief tussle over it. Eventually the mother and baby zebra walked off, and left for camp.

Saw: starlets, guinea fowl, impalas, topi, buffalo, vervet monkeys, zebras, maribous, baboons, dik diks, wildebeest, ostrich, Thompson gazelles, secretary birds, silver-backed jackals, waterbucks

Earlier in the afternoon we had gathered up loose dead wood for a fire, and after dinner we had a nice camp fire in the Serengeti listening to the animals all around us.