Our second safari in the Southern Serengeti for the year 2018 started again from Arusha and followed exactly the same itinerary. Ngorongoro Crater was first. It was sunny in the early morning but clouds built up during the day. We found so many Lions this time around, and a few beautiful Elephant bulls.
On to Ndutu, we found the area still completely dry. No green grass to be seen around the woodland where the migration normally congregates at this time of the year. Only at the Hidden valley did we find some Zebras and Wildebeests drinking. We spent some good times with the Lions of the Marsh: the four males hanged around the females. Clearly a new phase in the life of the Marsh pride is taking shape. There is a lot of courting going on, in the beautiful setting of the Big Marsh.
We spent quite some time with Cheetahs out in the open plain
s. There was a female with two half-grown cubs who seemed to be keen to hunt. But only in the late afternoon hours she made a full yet unsuccessful attempt at a herd of Wildebeests.
As it can be seen in one of the pictures, some rain clouds started to build up during our time there, but rain didn’t appear on the Ndutu region. It was falling mostly on the highlands and further to the west. But soon hopefully it would reach here as well.
After Ndutu we moved again to the Serengeti plains, in our camp surrounded by the kopjes. It was another wonderful three days there, with plenty of Lions’ sightings, on beautiful rocky outcrops. On the last day we decided to try our luck in finding a Leopard on the kopjes. As we circled one big kopje we spotted very fresh Leopard pugmarks crossing the track towards the rock. As we didn’t see the tracks coming out, we figured the Leopard would be in there. So we drove slowly around and suddenly there she was, a beautiful female half-hidden in the vegetation. We spent the whole day with her, until at around 3.00pm she decided to abandon the rocks and venture out in the long grass, after spotting a possible prey. We lost sight of her.
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