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Published: December 5th 2023
Dawn over Tarangire
As seen from my chalet patio!The sun rose directly into my window. For a few minutes, I watched it while lying in bed – a first! I jumped up, grabbed my camera, and sat on the patio for the rest of the display. My reward was in the form of a dik-dik strolling unconcernedly across the grass, about twenty feet from where I sat mesmerized.
Our destinations in
Tarangire Park were a water course of the Tarangire River and a distant swamp fed by the river. Before we were out of the lodge parking lot, Lucas was showing us wildlife. The large baobab tree at the entrance had a
Strangler Fig as a parasite. The fig was so much smaller than the giants in Cambodia, I didn’t even recognize it.
In the parking lot of the Park entrance, he saw us looking at a termite mound. He showed us the
Matabele ants on the mound, the only predators of termites. Then he showed us the soldier termite just inside a hole, defending the mound. Standing, he pointed out the holes near the top, which were to let hot air out of the deep mound, and the holes closer to the ground, which were to draw cooler air
into the mound. At the bottom of the deep structure would be some form of moisture.
Nearby, a troupe of monkeys and a young male waterbuck were wandering and eating together. The waterbuck was young; probably he had recently been ejected from the herd by his father, a way of preventing inbreeding. The monkeys unwittingly provided him with security from predators, because they are alert and react quickly. Just at the edge of the parking lot, mongooses agilely tripped along the height of a line of dirt rubble, until they turned off into the long grass.
As our morning wound on, we saw the usual infinity of zebras and buffalo. At last I captured pictures of zebras dust bathing, which they do very quickly – stoop, collapse, roll, stand. While we were stopped to watch some soaring raptors, suddenly one of them dipped right into the grass and flew away with an unfortunate mouse. Another raptor aggressively flew in to snatch the mouse, but unsuccessfully. Our attention focussed on a well-posed Lilac Breasted Roller. The name comes from its fighting style: from an advantageous height it plunges into a steep spiral, thus “roller”.
From a large rest
stop and picnic area, we overlooked the meandering Tarangire River, very low at this the end of the dry season. Far below us, animals of all kind came in for water. However, right in front of us, black-faced Vervet monkeys twisted and chattered in a tree rooted in the escarpment. I was a bit scared to be so close, afraid of attack and biting, but taking photos erased the transient fear.
We drove down into the valley. Near the river, a family of elephants marched out of the long grasses and straight across the road. We were always delighted to see the littlest elephants, and one stopped his mother to have a good drink. While I was concentrating on this enchanting scene, someone in our vehicle shouted that they saw a leopard hiding in the grass ahead. Regrettably, I could not see the animal for the grass, so I took photos in the right direction and hoped for the best. I could see its prey, a Reedbuck immobilized in shorter grass. The tension in the small body showed that it knew the leopard was hunting it. As the leopard moved silently, I suddenly caught sight of it. Pow! It
ran and pounced! But the little antelope was ready and evaded the snatch. Only made for pouncing, the leopard turned around and walked back slowly into the grass. We watched as it weaved in and out of sight, arriving plainly at a place where it chose to cross the road, seeking shade. Since there are few trees on a grassland, its choice of shade patch was quite close to where the elephants were cooling in their spread of shade. The leopard carefully stayed away from the elephants, several of which stared his way, making a barrier to protect the small ones and the matriarch.
Farther on was a network of animal trails down a cliff to the river. The wildebeest trotted down, raising dust in a long line. (They move in lines to minimize being a huge target for cat attacks.) Milling around in the shallows, the wildebeest, zebras, elephants and gazelles drank, relaxed by the safety in numbers. Satiated, the herds gradually made their way back up the trails.
When we were satiated with viewing, we too moved back to the grasslands. A pair of Masai ostriches unconcernedly made their way into the bushes. A Masai giraffe
nibbled on the fresh leaves of acacia; they have developed the ability to twist their long grey tongues around and through the thorns. (Memories of my first day at the Giraffe Centre in Nairobi.) An excited Lucas identified a Lesser Kudu – rarely seen. It disdainfully walked away from us, never showing its face but making a great display of its striped back. A few minutes later, a confrontational Waterbuck stared us full in the face, eventually turning and moving on. Hardly visible, except to our keen-eyed driver, a tiny Dik-dik hid in the shade of a tree, not moving, hoping to blend into the mottled grass. Because they stand only about a foot high, have big eyes and ears, and little slim horns, they seem to be the cutest antelopes ever, in our human perceptions.
Stopping every few minutes to look at Gymnogene Hawks, Masai Giraffes, Waterbuck, and Yellow Billed Stork, we came to
Silale picnic site (named for a far mountain). We filled our plates from the chicken and potatoes provided by the lodge, and sat at tables in the shade filling our eyes with the distant panorama of grassland and grazing animals.
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Isabel Gibson
non-member comment
What a spectacular day, documented in some spectacular shots/video, especially of the "chase". As a creature at the top pf my own food chain, it's perhaps illogical for my sympathies to lie with the prey rather than the predator, but so it is. And that Lilac-breasted roller is stunning.