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Serengeti National Park
A million wildebeest... each one driven by the
same ancient rhythm, fulfilling its instinctive role in the
inescapable cycle of life: a frenzied three-week bout of territorial
conquests and mating; survival of the fittest as 40km (25 mile) long
columns plunge through crocodile-infested waters on the annual
exodus north; replenishing the species in a brief population
explosion that produces more than 8,000 calves daily before the
1,000 km (600 mile) pilgrimage begins again.
Tanzania's oldest and most popular national
park, the Serengeti is famed for its annual migration, when some six
million hooves pound the open plains, as more than 200,000 zebra 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 koppies. 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 characterises 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, focussed unswervingly on its next meal.
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