Migration time again

And so to Serengeti once more, where the green flush brought on by heavy rain a few days earlier was already beginning to wilt under the onslaught of strong winds and the January sun. Wildebeest were still around in good numbers but already heading west in great, looping, school-crocodile lines.  

Wildebeest on the move

Vultures and Golden Jackal on a kill

We're having a La Nina year again, so it is pretty dry.  Isn't that ironic, with stories of catastrophic flooding in Australia, Brazil and elsewhere?

The first babies were already staggering around on wobbly legs - and we were lucky enough to witness a gazelle birth.  

Grant's Gazelle with lamb

Beginning of January is very early for wildebeest to be dropping their calves.  Were these Ngorongoro animals (they tend to calf earlier than their Serengeti cousins)?  Or just unlucky early arrivals?  Either way, their future looks bleak. The Serengeti wildebeest breeding strategy involves flooding the market: nearly half a million calves born in the course of a few weeks.  With the best will in the world, the predators can't hope to keep up with those numbers.  But the few early arrivals will be real targets. A case of the early worms being caught by the  bird...

The real stars, I think, were the cats: Ndutu was pumping, with cheetah highly visible.  We spent a lovely couple of hours watching a mother with her 3 cubs, all obviously hungry.  She ignored a long straggle of wildebeest and zebra filing past – they were all too big for her to handle on her own, she dare not risk damage from a flailing hoof or horn.

She watched a distant herd of gazelle for a while.  Then she started towards them, in classic stalk mode to begin with, but soon abandoning any pretence of stealth to run at just under full throttle to catch something that we had all missed: a suckling lamb.  

Cheetah with kill


We waited as the cubs went to join her, but oddly, they didn’t feed.   Why would a family of hungry cheetah NOT eat?  It's agonising, because cheetah are such vulnerable animals, often losing their hard-earned prey to competitors, especially spotted hyena.  Every hunt (often unsuccessful) involves enormous expenditure of energy and  failure to eat can slow her down on the next hunt, if she's just not getting enough calories.  And with young to feed, she needs to hunt that much more often.


We couldn't help wondering whether they were just too stressed.   She was quite easy to find and several vehicles approached far too close, despite the cubs showing considerable agitation. In one instance, cars even blocked her way as she set out to hunt.


To my relief I heard from a friend that she killed again the next day, an impala – and this time they all fed happily.  Phew!

Not far away was a pride of fat-bellied lions, lounging in the shade. 2 cubs were squabbling over access to a nipple; the mother too full and lazy to swat them into good behaviour.

Nursing lion cubs

One of our most intriguing sightings was of a Fiscal Shrike feasting on a frog it had just caught.  It started off by impaling the unfortunate amphibian on a large thorn, and then tore off bite-sized pieces, which it swallowed with obvious gusto.  This is what earns them the nickname of ‘butcher birds’, but I’ve never seen them in action before. There’s always something new going on out there…


En route to Kakesio, a flash of crimson and green: a Narina Trogon!  He sat and posed for us beautifully, before flitting away like a gorgeous butterfly.  Now, some of you already know what I'm on about but for the non-twtichers among you, trogons are birds found throughout the tropics and they are always spectacular.  Perhaps the most famous is the Quetzal, the national bird of Guatemala.  They have a wide gape, reputedly enabling them to swallow small wild avocados - whole.

A couple of days later, over in the western Serengeti, we watched in awe as a herd of 300 elephant came out of the bush and ambled over to splash and play in a waterhole not far from where we sat.  Baby elephant, in particular, are a joy to watch at water. They have so much fun, playing with complete abandon while their mothers stand sedately nearby, squirting occasional trunkfuls of cooling mud over their bodies.

Elephants enjoying a bath


We also caught a rare glimpse of a black rhino, part of an ongoing project to re-introduce these prehistoric behemoths and bolster Serengeti numbers.  Rhinos were poached in their thousands in the 70's and 80's.  Rhino horn is prized for its supposed medicinal value in the Far East (presumably marketed under the catchy phrase 'Nothing makes you horny like horn') and also in the making of dagger handles, the must-have coming-of-age accessory for young Yemeni men.

The endangered Black Rhino

In a tree, later in the day, we found this lion cub, looking as if he had just enjoyed his Christmas dinner.  Not elegant, perhaps, but whatever works.

Overindulgent lion cub

We finished off the safari in style - an evening following a pair of mating leopards.  The male was relaxed but his young consort was very wary of safari vehicles.  She would hide in a bush, then sneak over to join the male for a brief copulation, before fleeing to safety 100 yards away. The whole performance was repeated every 10 minutes or so until the failing light forced us back to the lodge and our waiting G&T’s. 

When the going gets tough…

- - - - - 

Bat-eared Fox, Ndutu

Colobus Monkey, Grumeti Reserve

Greater Flamingo, Lake Ndutu

New Year Post! (Finally...)

Happy New Year to one and all! I hope you had a wonderful holiday season, with family and friends.  Our holidays involved a trip to Singapore, where Jules' eldest brother kindly hosted a houseful of siblings and assorted hangers on  (That would be me).  It was a festive time, so festive in fact that all my clothes appear to have shrunk...

Singapore. Ah, where to begin?

First impressions: it felt odd to be in a tropical city that works.  As you drive through the streets, everything – the heat & damp, humidity, the luxuriant vegetation, the sudden big-drop rainstorms – tell you that, yes, you’re still in the tropics.  At the same time, the meticulous signage, the gleaming new tar of the roads, the driving decorum and the very kempt verges tell of a more middle-aged, western capital. Oh, and the stern warnings on the subway against the carrying of durian, a popular local fruit with a foul smell but (apparently) delicious to eat. We committed this particular offence, by mistake, one day and couldn’t figure out why the whole city appeared to be shrouded in sulphurous fumes… until we got home and opened Jules’ back pack.  We had been carrying around our own private cloud of noxious durian-stench for most of the day.  So I’m lucky not to be writing this from a gleaming cell in Singapore Central Police Station.

Singapore is full of contradictions. Beautiful trees lining the avenues but not much life flitting about in them (thanks, presumably, to the mosquito-control spraying programme). Busy ethnic quarters, complete with colourful temples, mosques and bustling street markets but all curiously ungrungy.  The red light district was like a genteel suburb… Then gleaming tower blocks looming over them all.  

Shop houses: A Singapore feature

 

In other words, it’s nothing like Dar or Nairobi or even funny little Arusha.

A few highlights: if you have small kids with you, definitely take them on a Night Safari.  The kids are merely a smokescreen, of course – it’s actually a great night out for your inner child!  Most animals live free in large open spaces; you get the impression that they all range freely throughout the park but obviously most of them are discreetly fenced off. Most of the cages are large and spacious, with plenty of room to move about.  You can hop off the guided tour and wander off to take in some of the 'off piste' highlights.  The whole is given a nice touch of mystery by the use of soft lighting, giving the silvery effect of a moonlit night.

Mirth as a flying fox, arching its back to avoid soiling its pristine belly fur. Ollie (nephew) narrowly avoided being dumped on. Not long after, a Flying Squirrel launched itself off a branch and swept magnificently over Jules’ head… well, it actually would have smacked the side of her face if she hadn’t ducked.  It clearly didn’t like the way she was eyeing up the succulent bunch of leaves it was feeding on.

It then sat and chattered at me in a possessive rage.  It's a curious creature: exactly like an oversized standard-issue squirrel, complete with bushy tail curved over its back - but with the addition of ankle-to-wrist membranes that it can deploy to glide from tree to tree.

The whole outing was a neat reminder of the important role that a good zoo can play in educating and inspiring lots of ordinary folk, many of whom will never get to experience wildlife in its natural setting nor appreciate the imperitive of conservation.

My new official fave emporium, anywhere: Mustapha’s, in Little India.  Billed as a spice shop but much, much more - the size of a decent department store, but inside, all the hustle and bustle of  Istanbul's Grand Bazaar; electronics, jewellery, a cavernous drugstore, spices (there were entire aisles devoted entirely to different kinds of coriander!) and a greengrocery laden with exotica, fresh produce from every corner.  (Warning: DON’T go to Singapore if you’re worried about food miles; virtually everything comes from elsewhere).

Dragon Fruit

The Botanical Garden:  we only scratched the surface here, as we ran out of time with the Orchid Garden, a bewitching array of weird forms and luxuriant colour.  I can testify to the fact that you can see too many orchids – the brain goes on strike, rebels against having to process the riot of new information. You get a sort of orchid hangover after an hour or so… but this didn't prevent Jules from falling for their decadent charm: we are now the proud parents of four tiny orchids (orchidettes?), potted up and reverently sprayed with a fine mist of water twice a day.

 

Orchard Road, Singapore’s answer to Oxford Street, was a bit of an eye-popper for us African hicks.  The Singaporeans have taken the concept of the Mall to a whole new level.  Not only is the street lined with these opulent secular temples but once you venture into the twilight zone, you can easily access the next one without surfacing again for air.   They are all inter-connected: a shopping-maze-warren, making it as easy as possible to part with your cash with minimal heartache.  It was all very dizzy-making.  Again, about as unlike the typical Arusha shopping experience as you could wish! 

Thai Silks

And the food.   There was a bewildering array of foods on offer, particularly specialities from SE Asia, India and Sri Lanka.  And it was all delicious, whether from a street vendor or a posh restaurant or the food courts that dot every mall.

It was lovely to get back home again, just in time for the New Year.  We almost made it to midnight… the spirit was willing, but the flesh was still in the wrong time zone.

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