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Millions of wildebeests, each following ancient rhythms, play their crucial role in the cycle of life. They engage in a frenzied three-week period of territorial conquests and mating, enduring a 40km journey through crocodile-infested waters during their annual migration north. This journey leads to a population explosion, with over 8,000 calves born daily, before the 1,000km pilgrimage begins anew. – This is Serengeti National Park!
Tanzania’s oldest and most popular national park, also a World Heritage Site and recently proclaimed a World Wide Wonder, the Serengeti is famed for its annual migration, when some six million hooves pound the open plains, as more than 200’000 zebras and 300’000 Thomson’s gazelle join the wildebeest’s trek for fresh grazing.
Yet even when the migration is quiet, the Serengeti offers arguably the most scintillating game-viewing in Africa: great herds of buffalo, smaller groups of elephant and giraffe, and thousands upon thousands of eland, topi, kongoni, impala and Grant’s gazelle.
The spectacle of predator versus prey dominates Tanzania’s greatest park. Golden-maned lion prides feast on the abundance of plain grazers. Solitary leopards haunt the acacia trees lining the Seronera River, while a high density of cheetahs prowls the southeastern plains. Almost uniquely, all three African jackal species occur here, alongside the spotted hyena and a host of more elusive small predators, ranging from the insectivorous aardwolf to the beautiful serval cat.
But there is more to Serengeti than large mammals. Gaudy agama lizards and rock hyraxes scuffle around the surfaces of the park’s isolated granite kopjes. A full 100 varieties of dung beetle have been recorded, as have 500-plus bird species, ranging from the outsized ostrich and bizarre secretary bird of the open grassland, to the black eagles that soar effortlessly above the Lobo Hills.
As enduring as the game-viewing is the liberating sense of space that characterizes the Serengeti Plains, stretching across sunburnt savannah to a shimmering golden horizon at the end of the earth. Yet, after the rains, this golden expanse of grass is transformed into an endless green carpet flecked with wildflowers. And there are also wooded hills and towering termite mounds, rivers lined with fig trees and acacia woodland stained orange by dust. Popular the Serengeti might be, but it remains so vast that you may be the only human audience when a pride of lions masterminds a siege, focused unswervingly on its next meal.
Crocodiles
Giraffes
Zebras
Predators (Lions, Hyenas, Cheetas, Leopards, Jackal)
Birds
Wildbeests
Gnus
Buffalos
Rhinos
Elephants