It looks like the days are running towards a good early rain period… listening to the BBC the other day, an Australian "weather" professor predicted a "mild" El Nino; this of course would be wonderful for Tanzania, the Serengeti and the fairly dry Ndutu area! As it is, the weather has been somewhat strange of late and certainly the temperatures are back into the 30-32.9 Celsius in the shade of my verandah! We follow great build-ups of clouds, some quite nearby only to see them evaporate with winds blowing it all away again. But one day soon there will be more than the occasional spatter on the roofs!
The water of lake Ndutu dried up late this year, in the beginning of September, so the only flamingoes left have moved to lake Masek. Now near the end of dry season the guinea fowl gather in ever larger numbers. It is not unusual to see flocks of up to 70 – 80 "kangas" digging away in the dry soil, amidst huge plumes of dust. They also become quite habituated around the lodge and one sees long lines of running ‘speckled bobbing backs’ passing by, and sometimes following the guest footpaths near the rooms and buildings!
In the morning, during breakfast, cameras are whizzing and buzzing; all lenses and eyes focused on the birdbath in front of the dining room. The numerous and noisy Fisher’s lovebirds are so thirsty, there hardly remains space, let alone water for the doves, canaries, cordon bleus and spur fowl hovering nearby! Normally a bit nervous I saw a greater honey guide one morning too, and the yellow-vented bulbul showed up again, just one day! Paul mentioned in one of his previous Newsletters how this incredibly "common" bird, which we have never seen before in Ndutu, suddenly has appeared in the area! After several months of silence, the familiar sound of the african hoopoe, a repetitive "pooppooppooppoop" suddenly echoes through the woodlands once more and we had a week’s visit of a black-headed oriole, its melodious call so distinctive and beautiful.
Recently, to my delight I woke up early one morning to one of the very classic "sounds of the bush", the booming call of one of my favourite birds: the ground hornbill! Two days later, four of these somewhat peculiar turkey-like birds actually wandered past the lodge, what a treat!
Of interest was the report of a pair of side-striped jackals, seen near the marshes. Quite different looking from their cousins, the golden jackal, who prefer the plains and the black backed, mostly seen in the woodlands, side-striped occur in both habitats and are more omnivorous by nature. They have a more prominent ‘snout’, and sport a white side stripe along the body and a white plumy tip to their tail. They are somewhat shyer than their cousins and are occasionally seen at Ndutu. Elephants were absent most of the time near the lodge; small herds have been seen at the marshes and sometimes Masek.
Around the lodge, the ‘home’ herd of impala, our warthog family of four, various lions, giraffes, and a striped hyena have visited our little waterhole in front of the lodge. Spotted hyena regularly travelled back and forth as they had a den between the lodge and the Ranger post! We were very lucky to be able to see small black hyena cubs just next to the road and tourists could enjoy the play and interaction with the "guarding" adults early morning and late afternoon!
For a few days in mid August there was good sound ‘entertainment’ during the evenings when it turned out a hyena had died some hundred meters in front of the lodge. Much cackling, laughing and whooping accompanied the few guests that felt comfortable enough to "relax around the fire" as our selling slogan invites!
Now that the Maasai have returned with their cattle and have settled around Lake Masek, a lot of animals have left the area, or so it seems. Four weeks ago, lions had killed a hippo along the edge of the lake, but then were chased off their kill by roaming Maasai morani, which was sad, as towards the end of dry season, pickings are often scarce for our lions. 
The Masek pride lion cubs have provided great entertainment for the visitors as they could be found often not far away and seemed very active and playful! Though the pride still seems intact, one cub is reported to be very thin and trailing behind most times. Let’s hope they all make it to the end of dry season!
The now seemingly resident herd of 90 odd buffalo still frequent the Big Marsh area, and provide a good but dangerous prey for the pride. It has been interesting to hear of already 5 giraffe kills this year on which, on 4 occasions, lions were seen to eat! Two were young giraffe kills, and of course not all may have been killed by lion; still, an adult giraffe keeps the wolf from the door for a week or so!!
The evening of September 7th provided a beautiful view of a partial lunar eclipse, spectacular under a clear Serengeti night sky! Here, blessed with our unpolluted atmosphere the stars and planets are so clear and a constant delight to most people unaccustomed to even finding stars at night any longer! Towards the end of September one of the most beautiful constellations, Scorpio hovers above us early evening, and around eleven at night the first distinctive stars making up Orion appear low in the eastern sky. (Thanks to Tim Hope for this "Star Track" photo)
After installing a nice program with our Ndutu coordinates on my computer which gives amongst other things data on ‘iridium’ flares, satellites and the like, I can now find the ISS (International Space Station). We tried this in August, when it gave two fly pasts in one evening and how amazing to realize – after watching the ISS zoom past early evening and again one hour later in the w-northern sky – that there are three humans up there rounding earth at such breathtaking speeds! It is as bright in the sky as Jupiter! Now into early October, with the pure white soda of lake Ndutu drying up, the reflecting light of the moon gives the lake an eerie but very special glow when one sits around the fire at night!
Talking of evenings, one of our night watchmen, Sylvester, said he had a great night when at around midnight, he observed from the dining room how one of our resident ‘nyegere’, (kiswahili for honey badger), decided to try his luck at the huge bees nest which has been a constant worry to me over the past two months! The beautiful big tree right in front of the dining room was host for several years to a beehive which was using a large hole at the base. Sylvester said he watched as the badger tried to get at the honey, and consequently got covered in bees, and after two tries eventually had to leave…constantly rolling on the ground and trying to shake off the bees off his nose! So much for the honeybadger’s fierce reputation!!!
As it was simply too dangerous to leave the bees nest there, we finally had to decide to cement in the large hole. On two evenings we waited for the guests to go to bed and then tried to persuade the bees to leave their huge hole inside and up the tree, using smoke, with mixed results. Luckily on the third night with the smoke curling up, the bees escaped and crawled up the trunk outside while Samson and Albert (our bee-specialists) cemented the hole. It was simply to big a risk to have a beehive right in front of the open dining room; for several days a big "brown lump" of bees hung on a branch nearby and then they flew off, no doubt looking for better havens!
A gentle highlight has been a very small dikdik living near the entry of the Lodge. The parents hide out near the newly constructed small ‘askari’ house, and I have twice seen the youngster still suckling! All three are quite habituated, as their stamping ground is right along the road where all the incoming ‘traffic’ passes. This week, I have found the small one twice near the entry bridge in the car park by itself late afternoon, just nibbling some of the planted aloes, seemingly oblivious of the people wandering past! This morning it calmly walked up to Samson and Peter, who were fixing the bridge and just stood there and watched the work go on, only 3 meters away. It was an extraordinary sight and our staff watched with equal surprise! As wonderful as this is, I do worry a bit, let’s just hope it won’t fall prey to the wandering leopard at night!
Twice in late August while sitting at the campfire I have heard the distinctive sawing sound of this beautiful large cat; guests have been very lucky as for the past week there have been several sightings around the big marsh. Cheetah sightings are numerous, and tourists have come back with lots of stories of cheetah kills. Guests are still very keen on documenting information of cheetahs and altogether this is a great help to Anne and Sarah of the Cheetah Project!
Finally, may I introduce Wendelin and Max! They have been studiously guarding the Ndutu shop entry, each on one side and true to their reputation seem totally unflawed by the occasional attention from those observant guests that tried a bit harder!
Ask Stephano, who runs our shop and knows them better than anybody!
One pretty purple flower found behind the garage last year, I had planted before the rains and it seeded very well. A year later, it now covers almost one entire side near the shop entry. When it dries out it turns a beautiful light brown colour. On the other side of the shop path, a young cordia tree has come into green leaf three weeks ago. Well, the puzzle is to find Wendelin (green) and Max (brown) amidst the confusion! Well camouflaged, they have been incredibly consistent in blending in!
Rather than give away our ‘obvious’ secret I will leave it to the guests to work out where to find these two beautiful creatures…oh, and one last remark: facing the shop and looking for Wendelin and Max, make sure your back is covered as the big euphorbia tree also hides a friend or two!
Aadje
Ndutu,
October 2nd, 2006
ps Please see our Guest Gallery for more clues about Wendelin and Max – thanks Cristiana for these photos.
