Today is a full day of wildlife viewing! We started out before sunrise and immediately spotted a herd of impala. There is one dominant male in the herd easily identified by his large antlers – the rest of the herd is made up of females (without horns), adolescents and babies.
The sun rose shortly after 7 am and turned the sky above the plains a beautiful reddish orange. Watching the sun rise and set over the Serengeti is an added bonus of being on safari.
We saw a few gazelle, dik diks and cape buffalos but then our guide heard the other guides talking on the radio about lions that had been spotted in the grasslands. We headed there and were delighted to see a pride of over 25 lions – one male with several females and lots of cubs.
One of the most beautiful birds in the Serengeti is the lilac breasted roller. We spotted rollers perched in trees, on rocks and in flight with their vibrant lilac and blue plumage.
Baboons were plentiful in this area of the Serengeti. Troops of baboons generally have one dominant male and many females, adolescents and babies. Babies stay near their mothers and often ride on their backs.
We drove back to the river with the hippos, parked the jeep and walked to an overlook for a better view. Once again, the smell was overpowering. There were at least 50 hippos all jammed together in the water.
A hippo would occasionally surface for air crawling over the backs of the other submerged animals.
We frequently saw birds feeding on parasites on the backs of hippos out of the water.
There was a dead crocodile floating belly up in the pool. Our guide told us that it had probably been killed by a hippo when trying to snatch its baby. A monitor lizard was perched on the carcass enjoying dinner.
Giraffes were by far the most prolific animal in this area of the Serengeti. We saw males and females alone and in herds with babies feasting on acacia leaves.
As we were heading to a spot to stop for lunch, we spotted two lionesses walking down the track covered in flies. They had been eating from a recent kill. Our guide believed they were coming back for their cubs to take to the kill to feed.
Through chatter on the radio, we were able to locate the area of the kill and headed off road to see lions eating their prey. A lioness and two older cubs were feasting on a cape buffalo. You are not supposed to be off road in the Serengeti so shortly after we stopped a ranger appeared and all the guides did a 50 mph mad dash to clear the area so as not to be fined!
Eventually, we saw the two fly covered lionesses returning with their baby cubs. These cubs were quite young – our guide estimated about 4 months old and so cute!
We stopped for picnic lunch near a visitor’s center with picnic tables. Hyrax and mongoose were plentiful around the picnic areas looking for food scraps.
We saw many more giraffes and a few zebras during the afternoon. Unlike last time we were here, we did not see the big herds of zebras, gazelles or hartebeests, The migration had passed this area of the Serengeti a few weeks earlier and we did not see a single wildebeest; two years prior we saw thousands.
We headed back to the lodge by late afternoon and spent the rest of daylight in the dipping pool on our deck. A large male baboon was hanging around in the grass. We went inside to change into our bathing suits, shut but did not think to lock the patio door, and much to our surprise when we came out of the bedroom, found this baboon sitting on our table eating chocolates and fruit. Fortunately, he leapt down and ran out the patio door leaving a trail of grapes behind him.
We watched the sun disappear behind the clouds, reddening the sky. Had an early dinner at the lodge buffet, then turned in early. We are ballooning tomorrow morning and will be leaving at 4:45 am.