The full moon signalled the start of the wildebeest calving this month. If buffalo plod and aardvarks trundle, then wildebeest calves gambol! There are literally thousands of them to be seen this week gambolling around beside their mothers, and guests have witnessed many actual births. It’s always interesting to mark the time it takes for the calves to get to their feet, suckle and ultimately run along side their mothers, generally it’s only a matter of minutes. Everyone seems preoccupied with the wildebeest at this time of the year but there are many other interesting things going on.
I counted over fifty elephants in the Lodge water hole the other day. Our largest bull elephant is in town at the moment, a huge grand old animal that we call Tabasco. He is in full musth and dwarfs all the other elephants as he moves back and forwards looking for estrus females. Other animals seen in large numbers have been giraffes, a group of forty-eight were seen on the Lakeshore which must have been a spectacular sight.
It looks like there’s been another takeover of the Masek pride this year. Three young blonde maned lions have moved into the Masek pride’s territory. On two different occasions male lions were seen killing cubs last month. There has also been a lot of mating activity this month as the females rapidly come into estrus. One wonders what happened to the previous males as it was only last season when they took over the pride. It’s hard enough for lions to survive the long dry seasons but without stability there’s no hope for the young cubs. Lets hope these males are more successful and can hold on long enough to sire cubs that reach adulthood.
At the Lodge itself we’ve seen plenty of action this month. Most days sees the long crested eagle perched in the top of a tree in front of the dining room. They are a truly grand sight as they fly from tree to tree, their white wing patches showing and their uncontrollable crest blowing all over the place in the wind. The black cuckoo has been heard much lately, constantly calling over and over again and I have to confess slowly driving me mad.
The last thing you’d expect to walk pass the camp-fire is a hippo but that’s exactly what happened the other day. He looked as confused as we were as he watched us watching him before setting off on his journey again. Other visitors were a little more alarming, such as the huge herd of wildebeest that stampeded through the Lodge one evening. It was a truly fantastic sight that we saw in our torchlights but a little unnerving when they came thundering past. Although we should be used to it by now as we seem to be stampeded at least once a year.
The planets Venus, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter can be seen, weather permitting, from the camp-fire at this time. But the most wonderful thing for me has been the serval cat sightings around the Lodge. Many times we’ve watched a very tame serval cat walk by the camp-fire of an evening or hunting rodents in front of the rooms. On one particular day when we were watching a family group of elephants that had just bathed in the water hole and were slowly making their way right up to the Lodge. It was then that we noticed the serval moving through the grass very close to the elephants. The tranquillity was soon broken when one of the older elephants noticed or smelt the cat and went screaming mad chasing the serval out of the long grass and into full view. The sight of one of these beautiful spotted cats being chased by an angry elephant is something not too be forgotten.
On one of their forays to the water hole one of the elephants decided to have a scratch on the goal post at the staff soccer field. Naturally these were never built for this, so it immediately collapsed but this is a small price to pay for being in such an
exciting place.
Ndutu Safari Lodge.
18 February 2004
ps How many genets can you get in one photo?
