Safaris

Introduction

Lists of mammals, birds, and other creatures seen during safaris in East and South Africa between late July and early October 2009.

Photos: Animals of Africa.

Goals

Kilimanjaro (2009-07-15–2009-07-21)

Mammals

Birds

Plants

Samburu (2009-07-26)

Mammals

  1. Grevy's Zebra
  2. Reticulated Giraffe
  3. Thompson's Gazelle
  4. Grant's Gazelle
  5. Gerenuk
  6. Cheetah
  7. Elephant
  8. Waterbuck
  9. Dik-dik
  10. Oryx
  11. Mongoose
  12. Impala
  13. Greater kudu
  14. Buffalo
  15. Baboon
  16. Bat-eared fox
  17. Scrub hare

Birds

  1. hornbill
  2. African Fish Eagle
  3. vulture
  4. Guineafowl
  5. Ostrich

Volcanos (2009-08-03)

Mammals

  1. Mountain Gorilla

Entebbe (2009-08-07)

Walking around in Entebbe, at lake Victoria, at the botanical gardens. The early Tarzan movies (with Johnny Weissmüller) were filmed in the rainforest section of the Entebbe botanical gardens.

Mammals

  1. Vervet Monkey

Birds

  1. Kingfisher (blue?, photo 1060671)
  2. Weaver (?, photo 1060673)
  3. Pied Kingfisher
  4. Marabou Stork
  5. Great White Egret
  6. Gray Crowned Crane
  7. African Open-billed Stork
  8. Hadeda Ibis
  9. Long-tailed Cormorant
  10. Hamerkop

Nakuru (2009-08-09)

Mammals

  1. Baboon
  2. Warthog
  3. Plains Zebra
  4. Black Rhino
  5. White Rhino
  6. Buffalo
  7. Waterbuck
  8. Impala
  9. Lion
  10. Hippo
  11. Spotted Hyena
  12. Black-back Jackal
  13. Reticulated Giraffe
  14. Thompson's Gazelle
  15. Grant's Gazelle (maybe)

Birds

  1. Flamingo (lesser or greater?)
  2. Marabou Stork
  3. Pelican
  4. African Fish Eagle
  5. Ground hornbill
  6. Yellow-billed stork
  7. vulture
  8. starling

Other

  1. lizard

Highlights

Thousands of flamingos eating. Buffalo attacking a safari minibus. Hippo in the camp in the morning. Buffalo in the camp in the evening.

Hell's Gate (2009-08-11)

Hell's Gate is has served as a filming location for several movies, e.g. "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade", "Tombraider 2", "Born Free", "King Salomon's Mines".

Very fast erosion: tourists' carvings from 1992 can be seen 5 meters above, i.e. the gorge has deepened 5 meters in 17 years.

Hot water; powerplant.

Safari can be done on mountain bikes. We biked 28km in total.

Mammals

  1. Plains Zebra
  2. Masai Giraffe
  3. Hartebeest
  4. Warthog
  5. Thompson's Gazelle
  6. Buffalo

Highlights

Walking towards a giraffe. Biking next to a bunch of buffalo, having seen a buffalo attack a minibus the day before. (Note that the buffalo is likely to attack only if its alone.)

Masai Mara (2009-08-12–2009-08-13)

Mammals

  1. Plains Zebra
  2. Wildebeest
  3. Topi
  4. Jackal [BUG: which?]
  5. Spotted Hyena
  6. Lion
  7. Thompson's Gazelle
  8. Elephant
  9. Giraffe [BUG: which?]
  10. Buffalo
  11. Hartebeest
  12. Impala
  13. Bushbuck
  14. Cheetah
  15. Warthog

Birds

  1. Lilac-breasted Roller
  2. Secretary Bird
  3. Hornbill
  4. Ostrich
  5. Vulture

Highlights

A cheetah's attempt to catch a zebra.

Serengeti (2009-08-16–2009-08-17)

Didn't go but others saw two leopards, a cheetah catch a gazelle, and many rock hyraxes at the camp site.

Ngorongoro (2009-08-18)

600m deep crater. 19km wide. Crater rim at 2300m.

Mammals

  1. Olive baboon
  2. Plains Zebra
  3. Elephant
  4. Golden Jackal
  5. Black-back Jackal
  6. Lion
  7. Spotted Hyena
  8. Brown Hyena
  9. Black Rhino
  10. Thompson's Gazelle
  11. Cheetah
  12. Buffalo
  13. Coke's Hartebeest
  14. Waterbuck
  15. Grant's Gazelle
  16. Hare (?)
  17. Warthog
  18. Wildebeest

Birds

  1. Gray Crowned crane
  2. Spoonbill
  3. Kori Bustard

... and many others.

Highlights

Zebras and elephant in the camp. I managed to walk to about 5m from the zebras before they smelled (saw?) me and galloped away.

Safari highlight: lion family eating a buffalo.

Spice Tour, Zanzibar (2009-08-21)

Spices

  1. Lemon Grass
  2. Nutmeg
  3. Breadfruit
  4. Cloves (Nelken)
  5. Cinnamon
  6. Pepper
  7. Pineapple
  8. Lemon (very big, only on Zanzibar in this form (?))
  9. Cocoa
  10. Vanilla (manually pollinated on Zanzibar, very time-consuming like this; in Costa Rica and Mexico the humming bird is used to pollinate)
  11. Ginger
  12. Lipstick fruit (anato (?), picsin (?), similar to rambutan but very red inside)
  13. Tapioka
  14. Kurkuma
  15. Durian (off-season)
  16. Cardemon (root with fruits)
  17. Coconut

Snorkeling @ Mnemba Atoll (2009-08-23)

Fish, corals, worms, sponges, etc.

Many, but don't know the names. Didn't see clownfish tough. :(

Jozani forest (2009-08-24)

The Jozani national park contains several types of forest: coral forest, mangrove, etc. The Jozani park is famous for its red colobus monkeys who only live on Zanzibar (although some subspecies of red colobus also live on mainland Tanzania).

Colobus monkeys do not have thumbs on their front legs. They don't eat ripe fruits because they cannot digest sugar. They like to eat charcoal possibly to bind toxins contained in some of the plants whose leaves they eat.

The largest animal ever to live on Zanzibar is the Zanzibar leopard. Unfortunately, nobody has seen it anymore for several years. Also some small antelopes, serval, civet, and bushpig live on Zanzibar but these are either nocturnal or shy, so they are very difficult to see.

Mammals

  1. black monkey
  2. red colobus monkey
  3. squirrel
  4. slender mongoose (in a nearby turtle sanctuary)

Birds

  1. cicada (very laud)
  2. yellow billed cucaloo (?)

Other

  1. lizard
  2. green mamba
  3. butterly
  4. spider
  5. frog (small)
  6. green sea turtle (in a nearby turtle sanctuary)
  7. crabs
  8. cricket
  9. ants
  10. trumpet fish

Trees

Most of the trees seen are not native to Zanzibar.

The water level in the mongrove forest changes according to tide. Twice a month (full moon, new moon) the water is so high that it floods the boardwalk. We were there during low tide.

  1. Palm oli (Elaels guineensis)
  2. Raffia palm (?)
  3. Strangling fig (Ficus nataiensis)
  4. Sygamore fig (strangled by the F. nataiensis)
  5. Wild date palm
  6. Indian almond tree
  7. Australian pine
  8. Zamibin apple tree (?) (red colobus likes it)
  9. Mangrove
  10. /and many others/

Mikumi National Park (2009-08-26)

Just drove along the Tanzam road, which crosses the Mikumi park, staying there for 50km. The truck stopped only once, briefly to let us photograph the pygmy elephants.

Mammals

  1. Impala
  2. Baboon
  3. Elephant
  4. Giraffe (Masai?)
  5. Plains Zebra
  6. Warthog

Birds

Some marabous, and other vultures. Also some hornbills.

Kande beach camp (2009-08-30)

By the table tennis table saw a geko catch a moth and slowly swallow it. After approx. one hour we got bored, approx. half of the moth had been processed by then.

South Luangwa (2009-09-02)

The Croc Valley camp is located on the bank of a river which is filled with hippos and crocs, and loads of birds. Across the river lays the national park. Elephants occasionally walk through the camp and destroy the flowerbeds. Snakes (black mamba?) can be seen on trees.

The campsite used to be a crocodile farm, producing skin to be shipped to Italy to be turned into handbags etc. Now the camp is run by a South-African. Two gamedrives within 24h cost 110 USD per person.

Evening game drive takes place from 16.00 to 20.00. Around 18.00 the Sun sets, this is observed at the river, drinking juice and eating nuts. Then, in the dark, a huge spotlight is used to detect the animals (by the reflection of their eyes).

Mammals

Highlights

Right at the beginning of the drive, lion laying in the middle of the road.

Lions (some 12 of them) sleeping (in the middle of the road).

A swampy area evenly dotted with impalas, monkeys, pukus, zebras, etc.

Nocturnal animals: serval and genet. Maybe a leopard.

Hippo eating lettuce.

South Luangwa (2009-09-03)

Morning game drive (from 06.00 to 10.00). Only K.

Mammals

Birds

Highlights

Lion family (3 cups, mother, and a young male) walking (very close to the truck).

Elephant running (in panic?) across the road (to his family?) just behind our truck.

South Luangwa (2009-09-03)

Evening game drive (from 16.00 to 20.00). Only Cs.

Mammals

Birds

Highlights

Honey badger, civet, mongoose.

Chobe (2009-09-14)

Afternoon game drive (from 15.30 to 18.30).

Mammals

Birds

Highlights

Lots of elephants (60,000 in Chobe?).

Lionesses starting to hunt giraffes, a jackal (scavenger) watching. This happened around 18.00, i.e. half an hour before closing of the park (when all the gamedrives must stop). Either the giraffes noticed the lions, or they were scared off by a leaving truck, but all of them ran away, so again we missed a kill happening.

Okavango Delta (2009-09-16–2009-09-18)

Mammals

Birds

Etosha (2009-09-21–2009-09-23)

Etosha NP is a "big 4" national park, i.e. buffalo is missing. There are many waterholes, some are manmade. During the dry season (like in September 2009) animals like to hang out by the waterholes and drink. The safari is thus basically about driving from one waterhole to the next. The camp sites (Namutoni, Halali, Okaukuejo) are all situated next to a waterhole, which is lit up during the night. So one can sit all night by the waterhole to observe the nocturnal animals. (In our experience, no really nocturnal animal comes, i.e. the animals that we saw, we had seen already during the day.)

The park has many giraffes and jackals, compared to the parks described above. Special are springbock (never seen it before, looks like the Thomson's Gazelle) and oryx (saw it only in Samburu).

Birds

Brandberg (2009-09-24)

Brandberg hosts the highest peak in Namibia (2500 m ?). It is famous for its 5000-2000 year old rock paintings, notably the "White Lady". There are several sites with paintings, but the guide takes you to just one of them (45 min walk from the park gate).

The paintings are small and almost faded. They depict animals, such as oryx, wildebeest, jackal, hyena, and people (medicine men). The white lady is actually male. The depicted animals cannot be observed in the wild, but there are many rock hyraxes (which the paintings strangely do not include).

Mammals

Other

Sossusvlei (2009-09-29–2009-09-30)

Mammals

Birds

Other

Cape Point trip (2009-10-06)

Apart from a few animals, we spotted a large variety of plants/flowers collectively known as fynbos, or Cape Kingdom. Many of the plants triggered a flashback, as if I'd seen them in grandmother's garden.

Mammals

Birds

Other

Conclusions

List of animals seen more than 3 times.

AnimalFreq
elephant9
buffalo9
plains zebra9
lion8
baboon6
ostrich5
waterbuck5
hippo5
thompson's gazelle5
spotted hyena5
squirrel4
african fish eagle4
giraffe4
helmeted guineafowl4
puku4
lizard4
bushbuck4
wildebeest4
greater kudu4
black-back jackal4
Kaarel. Started 2009-08-22