Reading this week:

• Atlas Obscura: Wild Life by Cara Giaimo and Joshua Foer
• A Fistful of Shells by Toby Green

On this safari we spent two nights in the Serengeti, a change from our pace otherwise of moving to a new lodge every night. This one was a tented camp, though tented only in the most technical sense; the tents had toilets. On arrival we were greeted not only with the juice ritual but with the singing of Maasai. Other than laying out the metaphorical red carpet for arriving guests, the Maasai’s other job was escorting you to and from your tent after dark, in case the animals come out and attack. My super amazing wife and I would have indeed been a tasty treat for any lions as we turned in after dinner, being more than a little overstuffed from the “live pasta” bar they had. Ah, nature.

The next morning started relatively slow since we were of course already in the midst of the park, and so we set off at only 7am. As we passed a small stream I joked about seeing hippos, but that joke was on me. Our first animal sighting was in fact a pair of hippos by the side of the stream, still enjoying what was for them a late dinner out. As we were taking photos I spotted that the female had a gash in her side, and the oxpeckers (in this case misnamed) were ducking down and pecking into the gash. That must have hurt but she trundled on apparently unbothered. Slightly farther down the road we stopped to admire a trio of young male lions on the prowl.

One of the more interesting panoramas of the day came early, when we saw a flock up ahead of marabou storks alongside some vultures. Getting closer it was evident that they were all waiting patiently as a hyena took its share of a wildebeest carcass. Farther off we even saw some jackals, again very cool to see. Eventually the hyena did decide it had enough and we watched the other scavengers move in to scavenge. The whole day increasingly made me feel bad for wildebeests. I like them a lot, as they are so funny-looking and have an amusing habit of joining a whole variety of herds, whether that herd is comprised of wildebeests or not. Besides the wildebeest being scavenged, we later on saw another carcass of one with another marabou stork perched on top, a herd of wildebeests being scattered by a grumpy-looking elephant who evidently thought they had gotten too close, and finally a little baby wildebeest getting chased around by a march larger and evidently also grumpy Cape buffalo. The things a wildebeest has to put up with just to eat some grass.

A big thing I paid attention to this day was the sounds of it all. We had parked next to a mixed herd of wildebeest and zebra and eventually it occurred to me to try to record the sounds of the bugs flitting about and the neighing and barking of the wildebeests and zebras (it’s the zebras that do the barking). But in this spot every time I went to go and record that soon a car or truck was rolling past (often in other cases we were that car, so no hard feelings). Or a plane, since here we were also near an airstrip. This wasn’t even the high season for tourists, and we did often have what seemed like the whole Serengeti to ourselves, but one ponders what it does to the soundscape. Later on as we watched a herd of wildebeests cross a small stream, the grunting of thousands of wildebeests created a hypnotizing and encompassing background drone. Safaris though are a treat for all the senses; passing a pool hosting a cramped mass of hippos, Obedi commented that you could “smell the nature.”

Another exciting part of the day was that we rounded out our Big Five. Elephants we got on day one at Lake Manyara; lions, buffalo, and rhinoceros on day two in Ngorongoro Crater; and so today when we set out Obedi mentioned that he wanted us to see a leopard. And you know I made this joke about just yesterday too but Big Cats safaris once again pulled off showing us big cats. We in fact wound up seeing two leopards today. The first one was spotted courtesy of a passing truck driver (he came by when I was trying to record the bug sounds). Both were in distant trees, and the first one was munching on yet another unfortunate wildebeest. The second was nice enough to be snoozing on a relatively low branch (instead of deep in a tree like the first one), really allowing me to show off my wildlife photography skills here:

And so we spent the day trundling around the vast Serengeti seeing what we could see. I wish I was able to admire the birdlife a bit better. The megafauna and megabirds on the veldt get all the glory, but if you pay attention you can see all sorts of birds flitting in and out of the tall grass. These ground-dwelling birds tended to be ground-colored, though also in the small bird category were lilac breasted rollers which were pleasingly plentiful. The smaller mammalian life deserve praise too I suppose. We saw dik-diks a couple times and they were very cute but already famous, and more than once we saw banded mongoose scurrying suspiciously across the road.

The funniest part of the day was when Obedi took us to a picnic spot to use the bathroom facilities. It was a very lovely picnic spot, perched on top of a small hill, so lovely in fact that as we got right into the middle of it I spotted a lion having a nice little nap right by a picnic table. This Obedi thought was over-the-moon hilarious; “I have to take a picture of this!” All well and good except we all did need to pee so the solution was to park the car as close and physically possible to the bathroom (which was about 30 yards from the lion), duck across quickly through the doors, and close the gate behind us. As we were leaving the picnic area the lion hadn’t moved, and on our way out Obedi warned some other drivers who were heading to the picnic spot. When we did settle down for lunch we made sure to scope out the surroundings thoroughly before digging into the meal.

Eventually we wound our way back to camp, this time in the early afternoon instead of early evening. Along the way we saw some lions in a tree scoping out a herd of zebra on the horizon, making up for the lack of tree-dwelling lions at Lake Manyara, and a herd of elephants fresh from their mud-wallowing skincare routine. A final surprise was a giraffe about eye-level with us as we crossed a bridge. With a long afternoon in camp we settled in to relax, enjoying sundowners and listening to the rain-like sounds of the wind breezing through the grass in the park beyond. The swifts nesting in the eaves of the tent added a little wild-life spotting excitement. And so ended a gorgeous day in one of the most gorgeous spots on earth.