Last night lions ran past our bedroom window so close that we could hear their footfalls. Then the windows started to rattle as they roared and, once again, they were so close that we could almost feel the vibrations. Strangely enough it’s a very relaxing sound when you’re safely tucked up in bed with the doors locked! In the morning, the large pugmarks by the front door proved that we hadn’t been dreaming.
We will probably start to see more of the resident lion prides now that the area is starting to dry out and they have to search further for food. As it gets drier, the wildebeest and zebra have moved out onto the plains to the north, though on drives we still come across the odd nervous group in the woodlands. You can still see the herds towards Naabi Hill with binoculars from the verandahs. In fact, you never know what you might see from your room, only last week two cheetahs walked through the lodge.
The lion cubs born in January from the Masek pride are still doing well. But times will start to get harder for them. Their parents will have to turn their hunting skills away from the relatively easy to catch wildebeest and zebra to the dangerous buffalo and giraffes or faster, more agile impala, hartebeest and gazelles. Warthogs and smaller animals such as hares and porcupines will also probably be included in the lions’ diet through the dry season. There are several small groups of topi in the woodlands, which is quite unusual at Ndutu, as they prefer the long grass plains to the North; it seems we are just on the edge of their range. The Ndutu Lodge football team is known as the Ndutu Nyamera’s, nyamera is the Kiswahili word for topi. So topi must have been here sometime in the past, maybe it’s a good omen for the coming football season.
The Karatu Secondary school came for their yearly visit in May. The Karatu School is the nearest school to the lodge (3� hour’s drive), Ndutu have been inviting them out for a few days at the lodge for the past ten years. It’s a relationship we hope will continue for many years to come, as many of the students have never seen a lion or an elephant. The many visitors who come to Tanzania get to see so much of the country’s wonderful wildlife. But children growing up in urban areas of Tanzania don’t see or even know much about wildlife, which is a shame because they are the next generation that will be entrusted to look after it.
There are thousands of greater flamingos on Lake Ndutu at the moment.The greater flamingos eat crustaceans and the conditions in the lake must be just right for them. This will probably change in the coming months and then maybe the conditions will be ideal for an explosion of the blue-green algae on which the lesser flamingos feed. Sometimes both species are present but generally one is dominant at any one time depending on the availability of their preferred food.
African hoopoes are breeding again in the eves of room 19 for the fourth year running. These wonderful birds can be seen plodding around on the ground and they look just like clockwork toys as they search for insects to feed their young. Both male and female bring food to the chicks who stay in the nest until they are fully-grown. As I sit here writing, dozens of guinea-fowl are racing across the ground in front of my window. There are literally hundreds of guinea fowl chicks this year, probably thousands. Life would be so much poorer without these wonderful birds clowning around in front of the lodge first thing in the morning.
We’ve lost Jupiter and Saturn in the night sky, they have gone down in the West, but have been replaced by Mars the red planet that is rising in the East. It could be mistaken with Antares, which lies just above Mars in the constellation Scorpius (the scorpion). Antares (the heart of the Scorpion) is a big bright red star, technically called a red super giant, and I’ve just read that it’s 9000 times more luminous than the sun and some 600 million miles across. Figures like that just go over my head but it does make you realise just how insignificant we are and puts everything into perspective – the Serengeti can also do that too. The Southern Cross is still very easily seen in the south. The Hadza tribe from the nearby Eyasi area call the Southern Cross the giraffe, and with a little imagination you can see why, the two pointer stars look like the giraffe’s neck and the cross the head.
At Ndutu we have an elephant known as “Stumpy”. She’s called this as she only has half a tail, basically just a stump, that makes her unmistakable to identify. Without doubt she deserves a better name because she is magnificent, the terror of tour drivers, photographers and anyone who dares to approach too close. Elephants are just starting to move back into the Ndutu area after the rainy season and Stumpy has recently given birth to a young calf. Which is great news, but it will probably mean that she will redouble her efforts to chase everybody, as she may become very protective of her calf. We will have to think up a name for the new calf once we know what sex it is. But one thing we do know is that we are in for some exciting elephant watching in the coming months.
