Thursday 30 August 2012

Serengeti NP, Tanzania - Day 5

The chase is on!
Our plan was to search for cheetahs today, seeing as how we’d spotted a couple the night before. We took a wrong turn in searching for them and were just debating whether we should turn around, when we came across a safari vehicle, with the driver out of the car and the bonnet up. 

Stalking
After checking they were okay, the guide told us about a couple of lionesses ahead.  Turns out they were hunting a small herd of Thompson’s gazelles. 
Flying gazelle
To see the setup from start (where they flanked from either side to ambush the gazelles) to the actual chase once the gazelles cracked and run, was awesome!  The gazelle ran right down the road, with a lioness hot on her heels...

But in the end the gazelle got away and the lionesses went hungry... until the next attempt I’m sure!



Hippos grazing
It was back to cheetah hunting after the excitement of the lions, and we did eventually find them.  Unfortunately so far way, that we needed binoculars to watch them. 

They’d just finished eating a kill they’d made and had settled down for the day.  
A rare sighting - elephants mating
We went back repeatedly during the day, but eventually they disappeared somewhere... it took the whole day to find them again, eventually in the evening, but in the meantime, we had some nice sightings, including a very rare sighting of elephants mating. 

5 cheetahs
The late afternoon finally brought the cheetahs – 5 of them sitting on a mound – too far away for really good photos, but a great sighting nonetheless.

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