African Stories #5
This is a continuation of my safari while I was in Tanzania. It can be read on its own, but for a more complete experience, visit the first part of the safari here in my Safari Time post. Now to the fun.
Back on the trail
After seeing the lions have sex with each other we had a nice sack lunch in a picnic area on the Serengeti. We wanted to eat fast though so we could get back out and see more of the amazing animals that the savanna has to offer.
Luckily we had just eaten because if we visited the hippo swamp before lunch, we probably wouldn't have had much of an appetite. It was one of the worst smells I have ever smelled.
The hippos were swimming around in the nastiest water ever. They were all piled up together and every now and then one of them would poop all over the others, as you can see from this next photo.
It was like an explosion coming from under the water that would cover the backs of the others. I felt bad for the little baby one that was stuck in the middle of all of them with nowhere to go. Especially when a fight would break out. You can see all the scars across their backs from them fight with each other.
The nasty water brought bugs and other wildlife to the area. The long beaked birds would plunge their beaks into the shores of poo searching for something fresh to eat. Not the best way to find a meal if you asked me.
This Nile Crocodile was just laying around in the hippo swamp staying cool and waiting for the chance to venture out and get a bite to eat. I don't think this croc would be dumb enough to go try his luck with one of the hippos.
On to the savanna
It was nice to leave the hippo swamp and get out to the fresh air of the savanna.
There are so many amazing animals out wandering the plains. It is breathtaking to see them in their natural habitat. As we drove we came across a giraffe in the distance.
Then we got a call over the radio that a cheetah had been spotted, so our driver rushed us over to where the cheetah was. He kept us pretty far back because he didn't want to spook the animal. Luckily my 600mm lens was able to reach out and still get some decent pictures of it.
Everyone now and then it looked like there was a tiny head or two that would pop up along side the cheetah. I wish that we had been able to get close so that I would have been able to get some pictures of some cheetah cubs.
I'm seeing stripes
Zebras are very abundant on the Serengeti, but I would still get excited every time I saw them. Something about their black and white stripes against the colors of the grass and sky is just beautiful.
This is one of my favorite pictures I took of zebras because there were so many of them and the pairs of them "hugging." They stand like that and rest their heads on each other's backs so that they can protect each other by looking out for predators. It was really cool to see groups of zebras standing around doing this.
I made this watercolor version of my picture in photoshop. I am ordering a large print of it on metallic paper to hang on my wall with a lot of my other photos I have printed from my time in Africa.
It looks like this mother is going to have her hooves full soon with another baby on the way. I could only imagine the survival rate for the young zebra.
Into the lion's den
We got a call on the radio that there was a large group of lions that were hunting a zebra. Our driver rushed over there and we were the second truck there. We saw the zebra walking a ways in the distance and a few lioness had their heads popped up in the grass looking at it.
They were keeping their distance, but I think there was two of them that were actively stalking it in the grass, trying to force it to go towards the others.
Other safari vehicles started to show up because the news travels fast that lions were on the hunt.
The zebra started to get spooked because of all of the trucks that had started showing up and it took off running. None of the lioness's gave chase. We were all a little disappointed that we weren't able to see these predators in action. I still blame all of the other trucks for ruining it and making them all go hungry for the day.
You can almost see the hatred in this one's eyes as she stares back at us with disgust for ruining her meal. More of them started coming out of the grass to be back with the pride. They all seemed to stare back at us like they knew it was our fault.
After they all had gathered back in the area near our trucks we started to count them.
There were 16 of them total that had been part of the hunt. They all set up outside of our trucks, and started to pose for us.
I think they were secretly plotting to find a way to get one of us outside of the trucks to eat us. Either way, I rolled down my window and stuck my camera and arms out to get some good shots. If I was going to get eaten, I was going to get nice shots in the process.
This picture is one of my favorites of them that I took that day. I really liked how the golden light was hitting her and the fierce look in her eyes.
I made this watercolor version of the photo almost a week ago. It's really therapeutic to create art.
Gentle giants incoming
While we were there taking pictures of the lioness's a group of elephants started to wander in towards us.
It was crazy to see how much respect that the lioness had for the family of elephants. The elephants didn't alter their path at all, they were walking right towards the middle of the whole group. One by one the lioness began to get up and make a large pathway for the elephants to walk through and gave them plenty of space.
Even though the elephants were severely outnumbered they walked through like they owned the place. I wonder if they are the real kings of the Serengeti.
We have spotted the elusive one
Our safari guide told us he has been working on the Serengeti for 17 years. During that time he has only found a jaguar a handful of times. He told us that they are some of the most elusive animals on the Serengeti, so when he got the call that one had been spotted, I think he was more excited than anyone in the truck.
When I took this picture we were parked pretty far away and I was zoomed about to about 600mm, which on my Canon 80D, that I was using at the time, has a crop sensor on it, so it magnifies it to about 840mm. Everyone else in the truck had cell phones, so they were getting pictures of a tiny tree way off in the distance.
The jaguar stayed up in the tree the time while everyone in my vehicle passed binoculars around and looked at it. Someone said that they saw a kill that had been dragged up in the tree by it, but I didn't see anything like that as I went through the photos that I had taken of it.
After a while the jaguar got bored of looking at us, so it decided it was just going to lay back and go to sleep. It looks like he got a pretty comfortable position and propped his leg up on the branch to keep him from falling off the tree while he slept.
Heading in for the night
After the jaguar encounter it started getting late and we needed to head towards our camping area.
That's right, we were sleeping under the stars on the Serengeti. The campsite was really nothing special. There was some bathrooms, a hard building for preparing food. I don't remember what we had for dinner. What I do remember was that we had popcorn that was cooked over a fire and it was a welcomed treat because we had been eating traditional African food for the past month so this was a nice change.
We also gathered in the corner of the building and watched The Lion King on someone's computer and talked about all the different areas of the Serengeti that looked just like what we had seen over the past day.
After the movie we all went to our tents and tried to get some sleep while we thought about the fact that there was no fence around the camp and that there were wild predators that eat flesh to survive wandering around and all we had to protect us was the thin walls of a tent.
For these photos I was using a Canon 80D camera with either a 24-105mm f/4 Canon "L" series lens or a Tamron SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC USD. All photos were edited in Adobe Lightroom and the artwork was created in Adobe Photoshop.
I hope you enjoyed this installment of my African Stories series. I will finish up with my safari adventure in the next one with the remainder of my time on the Serengeti and then the day at the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Make sure to follow me so you don't miss any of the fun.
Thank you again for taking the time to go on the journey with me. I appreciate everyone that takes the time to read my blogs, upvote them and resteem to spread my stories. You are all awesome!
