A MORNING AND AFTERNOON GAME DRIVE IN NDUTU, BLOG 12, APRIL 7TH 2020

 

Another early morning and we are eating breakfast by six. The food which includes bacon, sausage, and crepes are sitting over chafing dishes but oddly the food is only lukewarm. It is no big deal, bush breakfasts are always cold, I just always have to ask why when something doesn’t make sense to me. There is enough food here to feed a dozen people so this must also be the staff’s breakfast.

George drives the same route out of camp that we took yesterday because we are returning to the wildebeest migration. There is a beautiful sunrise to enjoy as we are leaving Njozi camp. George takes a short cut through some trees and brush looking for anything that might be hiding here but we find nothing.

When we have reached the main road and traveled down it a few miles, we are astonished to find the abandoned baby wildebeest and it is standing nearly in the same spot as where we saw it yesterday. George comments on the fact that the calf managed to survive the night. I’m not sure that is a good thing since starving to death is going to take a lot longer than being quickly taken down by a predator. This is not a happy start to the day.

Traveling on down the road there is a hyena walking in our direction, or maybe I should say waddling. The animal’s stomach is so full it actually sways back and forth as he walks. The overstuffed hyena has blood smeared all over its chest which adds to the rather disgusting image. Hyenas are not exactly a favorite of mine but like everything in nature they are a necessary part of the system.

George drives a long way in our quest to find the endless expanse of wildebeest but we finally reach them. The wildebeest obviously don’t stay in the same place! George meanders through the wildebeest herd looking for cows in the process of giving birth. We find a newborn that is literally just a few minutes old so we just missed the actual birth. The calf is soaking wet and still trying to master the use of his very long legs. Unlike our cows who seclude themselves from the herd when calving, the wildebeest calve right in the midst of the herd. That makes sense with all the predators that are a constant threat. We also notice that the long-legged calves must get down on their knees to nurse their mothers.

As George continues through the sprawling throng of wildebeest, (there are zebra, gazelle and even a few elands mixed in), I notice two wildebeest intently staring into a weedy patch. As I am watching the pair, one of them jerks back and I catch a glimpse of a black body topped with silvery hair that caused the reaction of the wildebeest. I yell out honey badger and George reacts with a drawn out, skeptical,” whaat”, followed with a dubious “where” as he brings the truck to a stop.  I point to the wildebeest which is still staring into the weeds, and soon the honey badger pops its head up and takes a look at us. Unreal, Paul has never seen a honey badger and I just saw one briefly when we were on another safari.

The amazing thing about this honey badger is that we seem to have made him curious. The usually secretive animal keeps poking his head up from time to time and looking intently at us. A few wildebeest keep their eyes on him and in two separate cases the honey badger decides a wildebeest is crowding him and the cantankerous animal lunges at the wildebeest causing it to jump away.

Now comes the really astonishing part. The honey badger begins to move through the weeds, raising its head up in order to keep an eye on us. Eventually the animal emerges from the cover of the foliage and parades in front of us, looking towards us now and then. After walking in the open for several yards the fearless animal reverses course and returns to the patch of weeds where the honey badger promptly disappears. The honey badger must have a den here and it is beyond lucky that the reclusive animal put on a nearly ten-minute show for us.

George, puts away his camera, and tells me that he is awarding me one hundred points for spotting the honey badger which is the highest points he awards for finding wildlife. We didn’t know that George awarded points for finding various animals and we assume this is a game he has played with other clients. George then begins to laugh and shake his head while telling me that he still remembers the Rhino I found in 2018. I ask him if that rhino was worth one hundred points and his reply is that it absolutely was!

George begins zigzagging through the wildebeest again and at one point stops the truck so we can listen to the grunting animals. Paul says that the wildebeest remind him of the old Budweiser commercial where three bullfrogs are croaking out Bud-Weis-Er, which cracks me up. Then we all start laughing as a yearling wildebeest next to us lets out a high-pitched squawk. Paul likened the sound to a squeaky door. We never heard a sound like that again from the wildebeest so I don’t know what his story was, maybe the youngster just had a sense of humor.

As we continue our drive through the grazing wildebeest and cute babies, we find a hyena feasting on fresh afterbirth. We have noticed many piles of placenta this morning which probably helps sate numerous predators. We probably are a half mile from our honey badger encounter when Paul calls out that he has seen another honey badger. Get out! George is just in disbelief at seeing two honey badgers this morning. As we are gazing at Paul’s honey badger, I exclaim that there are actually two honey badger! This is crazy.

The pair of badgers go through the same routine as the first one did. Sneaking looks at us, picking their way through the weedy cover, and then breaking into the open to give us an unobstructed view, before disappearing from our sight. George declares that this is the very top to see three honey badgers. He then tells Paul that he is getting back up there. We aren’t quite sure what that means but find it hilarious anyway.

George decides to move away from the mass of wildebeest and see what else Ndutu has to offer. There are Thomson’s gazelle and Grants gazelle scattered across the prairie but after being encircled by the sea of wildebeest it feels very empty here. We are driving cross country with no real destination in mind, when George stops the truck and pronounces that one word, we have heard quite often from him. Cheetah! What are the odds that George drives a course in this wide-open park that takes us right by a reclining cheetah?

There are several Thomson’s gazelles in the vicinity and they obviously haven’t seen the cheetah judging by their lackadaisical attitudes. George decides to park the truck behind the cheetah leaving yards of space between her and us. We haven’t been sitting for ten minutes when three Thomson’s begin bounding straight towards the cheetah. As they get nearer, they slow to a walk, nibbling on grass now and then. I find myself holding my breath as the cheetah looks the gazelles over as they move ever closer. The trio of little antelope stop to graze not thirty yards from the cheetah and we are stunned when the cheetah completely ignores them. What an opportunity to pass up. George surmises that the indifferent cheetah is aware of the numerous hyenas that are in the vicinity and therefore the cat won’t waste her energy on making a kill when it would likely be stolen from her. We have now broken George’s record of seventeen cheetahs on one safari! However, George and Paul have upped the ante, they have decided they are going to try to obliterate George’s record of seventeen cheetahs and have set a lofty goal of seeing twenty-five different cheetahs😊. These guys!

Leaving the elegant cat behind we continue to explore this part of Ndutu. There are a lot of hyena scattered around and we count twenty of the scavengers, all which aren’t that far from where the cheetah is laying. We reach the border between the Serengeti and Ndutu which is defined by stone markers, (they resemble grave stones), that are planted several hundred yards apart. George turns around and decides to visit the cheetah again. This time the lovely feline yawns, stands up and stretches for us. We notice that her tongues on one side is jagged and bloody so perhaps this is another reason the cheetah wasn’t interested in hunting. We also see that she is very thin and George thinks she will have to move to new territory away from all the hyena as she needs to hunt soon.

It is time to return to camp for lunch so we mosey back through the wildebeest, still on the lookout for a cow calving but no luck with that. It seems everywhere we look we see hyena and we also find vultures picking at what is left of a gazelle.

We have chicken pizza, spring rolls, pita bread and guacamole for lunch. It was all quite good. Yesterday we agreed with George that because of the pesky flies and heat that it wouldn’t be much fun to eat our lunch in the bush. Paul and I agreed that we made the right decision as it is very nice to relax for a few hours between game drives. We spent quite a bit of time sitting in front of our tent, Paul reading, me writing in my journal, and watching the many birds in the trees and bushes that border the camp. We also get some exercise by walking the path in front of the guest’s tent.

I am particularly entertained by an Abyssinian Scimitarbill, that is probing the bark and holes in a large tree in front of our tent. The curved billed bird pulls many insects and worms from the old tree. The unique bird eats some of its catches but on occasion the Scimitarbill flies away with the bugs, always returning in a relative short time. I assume that the Scimitarbill has young ones it is feeding in a nearby nest, or perhaps the bird is feeding a mate that is setting on eggs.

We meet George at four-thirty to begin our afternoon game drive. George decides to take us to the Big Marsh to look for the lions known as the Marsh Pride. The lions are nowhere to be seen but we do come across a pair of jackals who are throwing their heads back and howling. Pretty soon three half-grown pups appear from the weeds and grass. Two of the pups begin to grovel, that is the best word I can come up with. The pair lower their front halves to the ground in a kind of bow, and their little tails are wagging so hard that they are going in a circle. About that time the nearest adult to the pups, to put it bluntly, barfs up some meat. One of the pups grabs a piece but the other pup isn’t impressed and walks away. Mom or dad starts eating the unclaimed stuff probably not wanting to waste it! Upon closer inspection it is clear that the regurgitated meal is afterbirth. This wasn’t the most pleasant thing to watch but George makes the point that these little canines have found the safest way to carry a meal to their offspring and that way is to swallow it. That makes sense, nobody can steal the jackal’s food from them when it is already in their stomach.

As we are driving through the mostly dry marsh bottom, we happen to pass by three sleeping bat-eared fox. It is pretty odd that they are sleeping above ground during the day albeit they are pretty well hidden by the ground cover. Even stranger, the little foxes hardly notice us, in fact the one that is sleeping on his belly only twitches an ear when we drive up. This was an unexpected and great find.

We find giraffe browsing on thorny bushes and I will never come to grips with how they manage to remove leaves from the spiked limbs without getting a hundred pricks with every mouthful.

We leave the big marsh and make our way back to Lake Ndutu. As we are turning onto the road that leads to Njozi we see several vehicles clustered under a huge tree with sprawling limbs not far from our turn off. George stops the truck to take a look and then tells us that there is a lion in the tree. Oh, for crying out loud. Sometimes I just can’t believe how fortunate we are. We decide to go take a look as there are only four or five vehicles enjoying the tree-climbing lion.

When we arrive all of us are astounded at the awkward position of the lioness and yet she is sleeping. The massive cat is sitting with her ample bottom wedged tightly against a branch while her front legs and paws are braced on crossing branches in front of her. The show stopper is a Yellow-necked Spurfowl that seems completely perplexed by this enormous “bird” that is in the tree. The brave/silly Spurfowl is clucking as it walks around checking out the lioness, first looking at the tail, then the lioness’ bottom, eventually walking up a limb to look directly at the cat’s huge head. The lioness pays the curious bird no mind although I did see her open her eyes a bit when the cheeky spurfowl is peering at the lioness’ face. That has to be one of the funniest things I have ever seen.

We leave the lioness and her feathered companion and return to the camp. After thanking George for a wonderful day, we retire to our tent and enjoy our much-needed showers.

Paul and I make the long trek to the bonfire, just kidding, the fire is probably twenty yards from our tent, and order our beer from Joseph and his liquor cart. David and Useph(sp) soon join us and I show them the photo of the cheetah and the tree lion. The big cat researchers both identify the lioness as Babs. The two young men can recognize her by sight but to make absolutely sure it is Babs they blow up the photo and check certain face whiskers above her main line of whiskers which is unique in every lion. Hmm, I can’t explain it and David made it so easy to understand when he explained it to us. The two also congratulate us on seeing the honey badgers. David tells us we need to watch a you tube video called “The honey badger don’t care” that shows how tough this animal is. The personable young man starts laughing just thinking about the video. We will check it out for sure.

When David looks at the cheetah photo, he tells us this is a young female and that she is in early pregnancy. David is intrigued by the damaged tongue and is unsure what caused the wound. He makes a hesitant guess that the cheetah somehow bit down on a thorny branch. Actually, that makes sense to me as it would explain the jagged nature of the wound. Maybe she was trying to make a kill and a thorn bush was next to the animal she was trying to clamp down on. Well, we will never know.

Tonight, Vana comes to our table and announces that there will be no supper served tonight. Paul and I look at him and then I say, “yes there will be, I can smell the food”. Vana replies that there will be no supper because they are going back to serving dinner. Paul and I have a good laugh over that great line. Last night we told the staff we would see them at supper and they had no idea what we were talking about. We explained to them that in our rural life we refer to the noon meal as dinner and the evening meal as supper. So, on our first night they welcomed us to supper! I love people’s sense of humor here.

The chef has prepared lamb, pork chops, potatoes, zucchini and banana/caramel dessert and it is all delicious. Useph eats dinner with us and we have an educational conversation with him learning more about the two friends work with Wild Source. They really seem passionate about what they do and why wouldn’t they be! Nancy