Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Journeying from Ndutu up to Moru Kopjes



















Wednesday evening last week, the migration were en masse on the big open plains around Ndutu; thousands of them in every direction. We had one of those 'parting of the waves' moments...Cornelius drove us right into the midst and then for about an hour we watched them passing, an amazing site and rather on the noisy side!!

Thursday morning we woke early, packed up our Wilderness Mobile Camp and headed north and west up to Moru Kopjes; what an epic drive that was! We had a huge stormy black sky to our right and brilliant sunshine to our left. We left the southern grass plains way behind, they're drying up now as the long rains haven't been good to us this year, and arrived in the Kopjes around sunset.  The following morning, at sunrise, the migration arrived. Literally! I think I even saw the first wildebeest in the procession; a thick fat 'snake' of wildebeest and zebra pouring in below us.

Since then, our camp headman says they're still coming through, but due to only gentle rains in the evenings, they may well keep heading up north and west. This is unusually early, but then it's all about the rains and they've been somewhat lacking so far.

Friday, April 15, 2011

Where to find a million wildebeest


The word just in from the Serengeti - there's a large group of Wildebeest around Makao in the Ndutu area and then another large group seen heading towards Moru. It hasn't rained in Ndutu for several days now,  despite cloudy weather, and so it looks like that lot might be heading off to find greener pastures. Generally they all seem to be spread out in a wide area, some have been seen around Nasera and Olduvai; this is very normal behaviour at this time of year.